From October 7 to 9, the CIS, the Central Asia–Azerbaijan format and the Caspian environmental track converge on Turkmenistan’s coast. What follows the meetings will matter more than the meetings themselves.
Tariq Saeedi
The Avaza National Tourist Zone on Turkmenistan’s Caspian coast is ready for three unusually dense days of diplomacy. From October 7 to 9, a sequence of meetings will bring together the Commonwealth of Independent States, the five Central Asian countries and Azerbaijan, and the states bordering the Caspian Sea.
The programme reaches well beyond the formal meetings of heads of state. It combines political consultations with discussions on transport and trade, water management, environmental protection, demography, healthcare, women’s participation, media and culture.
The central events are the Consultative Meeting of the Heads of State of Central Asia and Azerbaijan on October 8, and, on October 9, the CIS Council of Heads of State and a Caspian environmental summit. For Turkmenistan, the programme is also the principal high-level stage of its 2026 CIS chairmanship.
The sequence begins on October 7 with the CIS Council of Foreign Ministers, alongside a meeting of Caspian ministers on environmental issues. CIS Secretary General Sergey Lebedev said earlier that the agenda proposals for the foreign ministers’ meeting and the subsequent summit were substantial, with the final agenda to be agreed in Avaza. Preparation is complete: Turkmenistan and the CIS signed a protocol on coordinating both meetings on September 8.
A Central Asian format with a wider horizon
The October 8 meeting is the first formal consultative summit since Azerbaijan became a full participant in the format, a decision taken unanimously at the Tashkent meeting in November 2025. Azerbaijan took part in that capacity for the first time at an informal meeting in Cholpon-Ata on July 31, which ended with the signing of the Cholpon-Ata Declaration. There, Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev described Azerbaijan’s accession as a new stage in the positive evolution of the format, while Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev called the Tashkent decision historic.
Turkmenistan has circulated a five-part draft agenda for Avaza. It covers peace, stability and security; political and diplomatic cooperation; trade, energy and sustainable transport and logistics corridors; environmental protection and climate adaptation; and cultural, educational and scientific ties, including youth exchanges. The environmental section specifically includes the rational use of the waters of the Amu Darya and Syr Darya and coordination on restoring the Aral Sea.
The agenda is notable for bringing together issues that are often discussed separately. Water security is inseparable from agriculture and food security. Transport corridors increasingly intersect with trade and energy. Climate change is becoming a factor in almost every major development calculation in the region.
The transport item carries particular weight for Turkmenistan. Avaza is itself a Caspian-facing location, and Turkmenistan has increasingly presented its territory and ports as part of the wider transport geography linking Central Asia with the Caspian, the South Caucasus and beyond.
Water moves closer to the centre
Water will have a prominent place in the programme. A high-level regional meeting on the conservation and rational use of Central Asia’s water resources is planned in Avaza, with Afghanistan included in the wider discussion. Turkmenistan has repeatedly argued that transboundary water questions should be approached through international law, with regard for the interests of all riparian states and a greater role for international organisations, particularly the United Nations.
The October meetings build on an established track. On September 11–12, Avaza hosted the second consultative meeting of Central Asian countries on developing the UN Special Programme for the Aral Sea Basin, which ended with an agreed summary of practical steps.
The Caspian dimension
The environmental agenda extends from Central Asia’s rivers to the Caspian Sea. Caspian ministers meet on October 7, and a meeting of heads of state on Caspian environmental issues takes place on October 9, alongside the CIS summit.
Turkmenistan has prepared for it for several months: its Interdepartmental Commission on Caspian Sea Issues discussed draft documents in July, and a Caspian Sea Day conference in August examined ecosystem protection, regional cooperation, climate adaptation and new monitoring technologies. The littoral states face a shared set of pressures, among them ecological degradation, falling water levels, biodiversity loss, pollution and the sustainable use of the sea’s resources.
Turkish-language and Turkmen accounts of a Caspian Sea Day conference held in Tehran on August 11 describe the Avaza summit as a timely initiative responding to priorities in environmental security and sustainable development. Iran has now confirmed at the highest level: Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei has said President Masoud Pezeshkian will attend the Caspian summit and take part as a special guest in the CIS Council of Heads of State.
Putin’s participation adds another layer
Russia’s President Vladimir Putin reaffirmed his attendance at the CIS summit and the Caspian environmental summit in a telephone call with President Serdar Berdimuhamedov on September 22.
His presence will bring the Russian leadership and the Central Asian presidents together at the CIS summit, with Iran present as a special guest although it is not a CIS member.
This should not be read as the emergence of a new political bloc. The three formats have different memberships and institutional purposes.
What is significant is that one location will host several overlapping conversations among many of the same governments, creating room for bilateral meetings and informal exchanges alongside the formal agendas. Iran’s ambassador to Turkmenistan has indicated that a possible Pezeshkian–Putin meeting in Avaza would be welcomed in Tehran, while stressing that it would depend on schedules and arrangements.
Beyond formal diplomacy
The programme also reaches into subjects outside traditional geopolitics. It includes an international women’s dialogue on the role of women in maintaining peace and achieving sustainable development, an international conference on demographic processes and sustainable development, a CIS Interparliamentary Assembly seminar on universal access to healthcare, a meeting of CIS television and radio broadcasters, and a meeting on seed production.
The demographic conference is particularly relevant to Central Asia, where population growth, urbanisation, labour mobility, education, employment and healthcare are increasingly tied to economic development. The seed production meeting is a reminder that agriculture, water, food security and environmental sustainability are parts of the same policy equation.
Cultural diplomacy will accompany the political agenda: a festival of national cuisines from CIS countries and Iran, an awards ceremony for the television-film competition Flight of the Horse: Strength and Grace, the final stage of the Tatar Gyzy–2026 competition, and a concert with artists from CIS countries. An exhibition of CIS member states and Iran is planned for October 9 at the Avaza sports complex.
Why the concentration matters
Central Asian states have steadily built their own consultative mechanisms while keeping their ties with larger regional organisations and neighbouring powers. Azerbaijan’s integration into the Central Asian format adds a Caspian and South Caucasus dimension to that process. The CIS, meanwhile, remains an important framework for Russia, Belarus, the Central Asian republics and other participants.
Turkmenistan’s position is distinctive. It is an associate member rather than a full member of the CIS, yet it has taken the 2026 chairmanship and sought to use it to promote practical cooperation. Its official position is that its associate status is compatible with an active role in the organisation’s work.
The result is a programme in which several regional geometries overlap without merging. The CIS is one framework and Central Asia plus Azerbaijan another. The Caspian environmental process brings in the five littoral states, and the water discussions extend toward the Amu Darya and Syr Darya basins and Afghanistan. Avaza is less a single summit venue than a meeting point for several regional networks.
A test of practical regionalism
Statements about cooperation are now common across the region. The harder task is converting political convergence into working mechanisms: better transport links, more efficient water use, coordinated environmental monitoring, stronger trade ties and sustained investment in climate adaptation. Many of the issues on the Avaza agenda cannot be solved by one country alone. Rivers, polluted air, a shrinking sea and disrupted trade routes all cross borders.
For Turkmenistan, the three days also reinforce its preferred diplomatic identity: a host that offers a platform for dialogue while maintaining its policy of permanent neutrality. Avaza does not replace existing regional organisations or bilateral relationships. Its value lies in letting several of them operate side by side.
The real measure of the week will be seen after the delegations leave, in whether the overlapping conversations produce cooperation that outlasts the summit programme. /// nCa, 6 October 2026