The United States is working with Central Asian countries to provide them with alternatives to Russian investments and Russian routes of exporting their goods, Head of the Office of Sanctions Coordination at the US Department of State James O'Brien said on Wednesday
WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 28th September, 2022) The United States is working with Central Asian countries to provide them with alternatives to Russian investments and Russian routes of exporting their goods, Head of the Office of Sanctions Coordination at the US Department of State James O'Brien said on Wednesday.
"The Central Asian countries have economies largely entwined with Russia. Kazakhstan's access to European markets was largely by way of Russia both its oil pipeline and its agricultural exports," O'Brien told a Senate hearing. "So, we're working with them to provide them with options, whether that's physical alternative routes and other ways to develop investment and cash."
The Biden administration believes that Central Asian nations will be "happy" to have alternatives to the relationships that they have had with Moscow before and it plans to continue to work in this direction, O'Brien added.
According to O'Brien, Secretary of State Antony Blinken over the past week had a chance to meet with foreign ministers from five of Central Asian countries to provide them with guidance on how to implement sanctions against Russia. The State Department will have further conversations with the ministers on "precisely what they can do" on the issue.
On September 22, during the 77th annual session of the UN General Assembly, foreign ministers and representatives from the United States, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the Kyrgyz Republic, the Republic of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and the Republic of Uzbekistan met to discuss regional cooperation and continued engagement through the C5+1 diplomatic platform, the Department of State reported.
