Journalist @AmerikaOvozi @VOA_News U.S.-Central Asia ~ #VOAWomen ~ @Kennedy_School @Harvard ~ Liberty of the Press = Security of the State ~ RT≠Endorsement.
Washington DC
Joined April 2009
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Effect.uz, Tashkent 🇺🇿: Checking in on one of Uzbekistan’s most controversial, tenacious, and daring media platforms, which continues to grow. All under 35, the team represents the generation that makes up the core of Uzbekistan’s population. They are committed to providing in-depth coverage of public grievances, confronting the technical, professional, political, and financial challenges that come with this kind of journalism. Effect.uz calls itself a news agency and aspires to grow into one, while its current priority is to focus on the country’s economic and social problems.
As always, my conversations with the team covered the essentials: building trust, sharpening journalistic skills, navigating daily ethical dilemmas, and adopting best practices in reporting.
Paradigma.uz, Tashkent 🇺🇿: Why Paradigma? Because understanding a country requires looking beyond the surface. The mission is to capture Uzbekistan’s paradigm in all its complexity: the realities, contradictions, and challenges that shape the country, as well as the universal human experiences that connect it to the wider world. I value my exchanges with this small (several staffers off camera) but ambitious team, whose work reflects a commitment to exploring issues that matter. Sharing experience, challenging assumptions, and helping young journalists sharpen their knowledge and skills is part of what makes these conversations meaningful.
Navbahor Imamova retweeted
Secretary Marco Rubio brought 200 U.S. business leaders to Central Asia.
Can the region keep the promises these deals require?
Few are more excited than I am, but poor connectivity and a tough investment climate stand in the way.
Let's hope Central Asia is up to the task.
Tonight in Tashkent 🇺🇿: The opening of the Euro Film Festival 1/2 @EU_Tashkent
A stimulating conversation with the news team at Portal24.uz, one of Uzbekistan’s youngest media platforms, focused on covering domestic developments and issues.
Ўзбекистон янгиликларини ёритишга бел боғлаган Portal24.uz жамоасига улкан ютуқлвр тилаймиз!
Turkey’s investment in Uzbekistan approaches $10 billion kun.uz/en/news/2026/10/20/tu…
I’m grateful for the opportunity to meet and speak with Turkish political scientist Osman Kepenek in Tashkent. His academic work focuses on Uzbekistan’s political, economic, and social developments under President Mirziyoyev.
While looking for books, we also learned about the Youth Affairs Agency’s #1000Books initiative. We spoke with the people leading this important project and gained a closer understanding of its goals and scope.
Wishing the entire team behind this ambitious initiative lots of success in their work! 📚👏
Turkiyalik siyosatshunos Osman Kepenek bilan Toshkentda uchrashib, suhbatlashish imkoniyati uchun minnatdorman. Uning ilmiy faoliyati Prezident Mirziyoyev davrida O‘zbekistonda kechayotgan siyosiy, iqtisodiy va ijtimoiy jarayonlarni o‘rganish bilan bog‘liq.
Kitoblar izlab, Yoshlar ishlari agentligining #1000Kitob loyihasi bilan ham tanishdik. Ushbu muhim tashabbus ortida turgan insonlar bilan suhbatlashib, loyihaning maqsad va ko‘lamini yaqindan bilishga muvaffaq bo‘ldik.
Bu ulkan ishga hissa qo‘shayotgan butun jamoaga muvaffaqiyat va zafarlar tilaymiz! 📚👏
Navbahor Imamova retweeted
This formulation will not survive contact with reality because no Central Asian country regards China as its “adversary.” That is an American construction that does not translate. And that is precisely why, in the past, the United States instead talked about “optionality” and the importance of helping to reduce the region’s dependence on a single point of transit, market, or partner. That is not the same as this construction, which has been tried before, e.g., by Pompeo, and went nowhere. As for Russia, as opposed to China, the administration itself is busily lifting sanctions and enabling Moscow, so that’s hardly credible either.
“Multivector” foreign policy, which is a term often used in region, does not imply swapping one vector for another but means exactly what it says—having more than one vector and options in multiple directions on the compass.
Turkiyalik siyosatshunos Osman Kepenek bilan Toshkentda uchrashib, suhbatlashish imkoniyati uchun minnatdorman. Uning ilmiy faoliyati Prezident Mirziyoyev davrida O‘zbekistonda kechayotgan siyosiy, iqtisodiy va ijtimoiy jarayonlarni o‘rganish bilan bog‘liq.
Kitoblar izlab, Yoshlar ishlari agentligining #1000Kitob loyihasi bilan ham tanishdik. Ushbu muhim tashabbus ortida turgan insonlar bilan suhbatlashib, loyihaning maqsad va ko‘lamini yaqindan bilishga muvaffaq bo‘ldik.
Bu ulkan ishga hissa qo‘shayotgan butun jamoaga muvaffaqiyat va zafarlar tilaymiz! 📚👏
Business and economic development have been among 🇺🇸 U.S. policy priorities in Central Asia from the very beginning. The tactics and approaches have evolved over time, but the underlying priority has remained consistent.
Small editorial comment: The Rubio trip to Uzbekistan is great and especially so is its commercial focus. But the dissing of prior administrations, while not surprising at all, is unnecessary and frankly somewhat ahistorical. The fact is, memories are short and nobody in Washington remembers anything that happened before last Tuesday anymore, but the U.S. government has been promoting U.S. investment in Central Asia for a very long time. This isn't new and the current administration did not, in fact, discover the secret of fire—although the apparent scale of the Rubio business delegation IS new and is a welcome development if it leads to tangible investment. MOUs are nice but call me in about 3-4 months and let’s count up how many actual contracts have materialized or whether negotiations on commercial terms have advanced.
In the Bush years, when I was the deputy assistant secretary of State for Central Asia, we promoted all sorts of investment and co-investment projects—pipelines, roads, power lines, electricity generation projects, and much more. We also turned the U.S.-Central Asia TIFA, which was the only regional not bilateral TIFA the United States had, into a trade ministerial and brought business into the mix as our public-private partners. To put that a bit differently, we already had a C5+1 before there was the official "C5+1" but it was in the very tangible trade and investment domain, not among foreign ministries.
What has changed, to be blunt, is the region itself. So it would help if U.S. policymakers focused on that instead of on themselves.
For one thing, there is Uzbekistan, which should be a much more consequential economy, attractive to American firms, but never was in those days because, to be blunt about it, it was run by Islam Karimov—a former Gosplan executive in the late 1960s, who didn't understand economics, markets, or Western business. To those who need a refresher, he effectively expropriated the leading American investment in the country, threatened others, and made it impossible to take the country seriously given the risk profile.
In 2002, the Bush Administration had signed a Framework Agreement with Uzbekistan that spoke loftily of “attracting to Uzbekistan U.S. companies and banks” and to strive to create an "attractive investment climate" for foreign capital. But trade is a good proxy for the state of a relationship. Tashkent bullied U.S. companies and so while U.S. business with Uzbekistan collapsed, in 2005, for example, 29.2 percent of total foreign direct investment in Kazakhstan came from American companies and the United States, which Rubio says “ignored” Central Asia in prior administrations, was the number one foreign investor there. General Electric had begun shifting the production of its locomotives for the Asian market to Kazakhstan, and FedEx had opened a new regional hub in the commercial capital of Almaty.
What has been dispositive, therefore, has been change in the region.
Another obvious change is Putin's war on Ukraine, which has made Russia unattractive to multinationals and Kazakhstan more attractive as a place for headquarters, regional sales and service operations, and diversified investments.
But the structural constraints on investment in Central Asia if you aren't Chinese and have a different risk premium are still very considerable. And the implicit American call to boot China from the region is laughable. China is all over the place in making diversified investments, not just in extractive sectors but increasingly digital sectors, renewable energy, diversified tech, services, and so on. There are Luban workshops and Huawei academies. And that's before we even get to the China-centric infrastructure and standard setting.
One way to make better policy is to understand and be reflective about history. Some historical perspective here:
2001-2009.state.gov/p/sca/rl…
Navbahor Imamova retweeted
Small editorial comment: The Rubio trip to Uzbekistan is great and especially so is its commercial focus. But the dissing of prior administrations, while not surprising at all, is unnecessary and frankly somewhat ahistorical. The fact is, memories are short and nobody in Washington remembers anything that happened before last Tuesday anymore, but the U.S. government has been promoting U.S. investment in Central Asia for a very long time. This isn't new and the current administration did not, in fact, discover the secret of fire—although the apparent scale of the Rubio business delegation IS new and is a welcome development if it leads to tangible investment. MOUs are nice but call me in about 3-4 months and let’s count up how many actual contracts have materialized or whether negotiations on commercial terms have advanced.
In the Bush years, when I was the deputy assistant secretary of State for Central Asia, we promoted all sorts of investment and co-investment projects—pipelines, roads, power lines, electricity generation projects, and much more. We also turned the U.S.-Central Asia TIFA, which was the only regional not bilateral TIFA the United States had, into a trade ministerial and brought business into the mix as our public-private partners. To put that a bit differently, we already had a C5+1 before there was the official "C5+1" but it was in the very tangible trade and investment domain, not among foreign ministries.
What has changed, to be blunt, is the region itself. So it would help if U.S. policymakers focused on that instead of on themselves.
For one thing, there is Uzbekistan, which should be a much more consequential economy, attractive to American firms, but never was in those days because, to be blunt about it, it was run by Islam Karimov—a former Gosplan executive in the late 1960s, who didn't understand economics, markets, or Western business. To those who need a refresher, he effectively expropriated the leading American investment in the country, threatened others, and made it impossible to take the country seriously given the risk profile.
In 2002, the Bush Administration had signed a Framework Agreement with Uzbekistan that spoke loftily of “attracting to Uzbekistan U.S. companies and banks” and to strive to create an "attractive investment climate" for foreign capital. But trade is a good proxy for the state of a relationship. Tashkent bullied U.S. companies and so while U.S. business with Uzbekistan collapsed, in 2005, for example, 29.2 percent of total foreign direct investment in Kazakhstan came from American companies and the United States, which Rubio says “ignored” Central Asia in prior administrations, was the number one foreign investor there. General Electric had begun shifting the production of its locomotives for the Asian market to Kazakhstan, and FedEx had opened a new regional hub in the commercial capital of Almaty.
What has been dispositive, therefore, has been change in the region.
Another obvious change is Putin's war on Ukraine, which has made Russia unattractive to multinationals and Kazakhstan more attractive as a place for headquarters, regional sales and service operations, and diversified investments.
But the structural constraints on investment in Central Asia if you aren't Chinese and have a different risk premium are still very considerable. And the implicit American call to boot China from the region is laughable. China is all over the place in making diversified investments, not just in extractive sectors but increasingly digital sectors, renewable energy, diversified tech, services, and so on. There are Luban workshops and Huawei academies. And that's before we even get to the China-centric infrastructure and standard setting.
One way to make better policy is to understand and be reflective about history. Some historical perspective here:
2001-2009.state.gov/p/sca/rl…
SECRETARY RUBIO: One of the regions of the world that we should've been involved in sooner and in a bigger way is Central Asia, and in particular, Uzbekistan. What I'm proud of is that that began to change about a decade ago and really accelerated under the leadership of @POTUS.
Tashkent’s Old City 🇺🇿: Exploring this part of the capital with Aqida Hanum, the perfect companion for the occasion. This outspoken blogger, known for her focus on social issues, grew up here and knows its streets and stories intimately.
After a homemade lunch, we set off to explore the recently restored streets and the canals that were once so clogged with trash they became known as the “smelly waters.”
Narrow, winding lanes with ups and downs, adobe walls, old trees, and a distinctly religious community give this historic neighborhood its character. Some corners might remind you of Venice, but Tashkent’s Old City has a charm and identity all its own. ❤️ 1/7
Tashkent’s Old City 🇺🇿: Exploring this part of the capital with Aqida Hanum, the perfect companion for the occasion. This outspoken blogger, known for her focus on social issues, grew up here and knows its streets and stories intimately.
After a homemade lunch, we set off to explore the recently restored streets and the canals that were once so clogged with trash they became known as the “smelly waters.”
Narrow, winding lanes with ups and downs, adobe walls, old trees, and a distinctly religious community give this historic neighborhood its character. Some corners might remind you of Venice, but Tashkent’s Old City has a charm and identity all its own. ❤️ 6/7
Tashkent’s Old City 🇺🇿: Exploring this part of the capital with Aqida Hanum, the perfect companion for the occasion. This outspoken blogger, known for her focus on social issues, grew up here and knows its streets and stories intimately.
After a homemade lunch, we set off to explore the recently restored streets and the canals that were once so clogged with trash they became known as the “smelly waters.”
Narrow, winding lanes with ups and downs, adobe walls, old trees, and a distinctly religious community give this historic neighborhood its character. Some corners might remind you of Venice, but Tashkent’s Old City has a charm and identity all its own. ❤️ 7/7
