ABNA24 - While the US-Israeli war on Iran has drawn the whole world attention to the Persian Gulf as the heart of the tension, this war has its impacts going beyond the borders of conflict, fundamental impacts that can seriously alter regional orders in mid terms.
Among the regions that directly and indirectly have seriously been influenced by the closure of the Strait of Hormuz are Eurasia and Central Asia. Countries of these regions, though may be far away from the battleground, but due to their geopolitical, economic, and transit relations with Iran naturally are exposed to the outcomes of the tension.
Unlike its turbulent ties with Arab neighbors across the Persian Gulf, the Islamic Republic of Iran forged relatively stable, friendly, and at times even influential relations with the Central Asian states almost immediately after the Soviet collapse.
In the 1990s, Iran played a key role in ending Tajikistan’s civil war and restoring stability, using mediation and diplomatic outreach to help solidify conditions there. Meanwhile, through active diplomacy over the Caspian Sea’s legal status, Tehran helped shape a framework for engagement with the littoral states, paving the way for more effective cooperation.
Moreover, Kazakhstan’s entry into Iran’s nuclear case during the nuclear deal talks, and its hosting of certain negotiation rounds, signaled a multilateral will to pursue broader future cooperation and build mutual trust at the regional level.
Yet, the outbreak of war in Iran led many observers to suspect that the warm and growing ties between Tehran and Central Asia might rapidly unravel amid internal conflict and insecurity. The earlier environment of trust and cooperation, they feared, could give way to a deepening uncertainty about what lies ahead.
This concern is mainly driven by the fact that in recent years Iran has been recognized as a relatively reliable transit route and political partner for the Central Asian nations and any instability in it could have broader fallout on the regional dynamics.
Problems of these countries may have emerged upon the first hours of Iran war. These countries set plans for safe evacuation of their citizens from Iran, but lack of a precise prediction and aspects of war made complications to this process, leaving their citizens in worry.
For instance, Kazakhstan since the early days of the war had to evacuate its citizens from Iran not from eastern but western borders through Azerbaijan using Astara Border Crossing, something indicating lack of a preplanned action program and logistic difficulties of war.
However, evacuation concluded at the end of the road. As the war unfolded, it became clear that its impacts go far beyond what was thought in the first days of war.
Wave of war-driven inflation in Central Asia
The war’s most significant impact, much like in many other parts of the world, was surging inflation, and for Central Asian countries, that inflationary wave arrived faster and more fiercely than expected. The first signs of price hikes appeared in Turkmenistan.
Turkmenistan relies heavily on imports from Iran for basic staples like food, groceries, and supermarket goods, especially in its western cities. Since the war began, items such as chicken, cooking oil, and potatoes have nearly doubled in price. These goods mostly entered Turkmenistan through the Sarakhs transit border crossing, a route that ground to a halt once the war started, putting serious pressure on the country’s domestic market.
Iran’s decision on March 3 to ban food exports under wartime conditions only deepened the chaos. Tajikistan, which over the past five years has seen its trade with Iran multiply several times over, hitting a record $484 million in 2025, quickly faced shortages of certain goods and spiking prices. Dairy products, sugar, spices, fruits, and vegetables make up the bulk of Iran’s exports to Tajikistan. With air and land routes shut down and transport disrupted, these items saw dramatic price surges.
Uzbekistan did not escape the fallout either, facing price hikes in milk and dairy products, since Iran supplies about ten percent of Uzbekistan’s milk imports. Before the war, roughly fifteen trucks carrying these products crossed from Iran into Uzbekistan daily. But once the fighting started, that flow practically stopped.
War has also seriously challenged exports of these countries to Iran. In 2025, Iran signed a free trade deal with Eurasia Economic Union, paving the way of grains exports from Kazakhstan to Iran, particularly from Amirabad Port, and trade figures suggested they were soon to reach $3 billion business a year.
However, war cast doubt on this planning. Grains account for nearly 90 percent of Kazakhstan’s exports to Iran and any disruptions in transit routes or security conditions can fast hit the trade.
Against this backdrop, the grain carrier Beatrix, loaded with several tons of wheat bound for Iran, was forced to anchor mid-journey, a clear sign of growing uncertainty in trade and maritime shipping routes as regional tensions escalate.
In the energy sector, Central Asia is not faring much better. With oil prices crossing roughly $100 a barrel in the midst of war and the Strait of Hormuz effectively closed, energy-importing nations in the region are facing severe economic pressure. Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, which rely heavily on fuel imports, have been hit hardest, sharply higher transport and vehicle fuel costs are now rippling through their daily economies.
Kazakhstan, though a major energy exporter that might briefly benefit from higher oil prices, faces longer-term trouble like rising transport costs, disrupted export routes, and mounting security risks in the energy market.
Fertilizer prices are also surging. Urea, a key ingredient in chemical fertilizers, jumped about 46 percent between February and March due to disruptions in energy markets and global trade. That spike is squeezing farmers in countries like Kyrgyzstan and will likely soon show up in the prices of other agricultural products and food.
Balance of power and region’s geopolitical shift
Eurasia has long been grappling with a fundamental security challenge, one that is rooted in the sensitive and subtle game of these countries between such big regional powers as Russia and China, which hold substantial cultural and historical influence in this region, and the US-Western camp. Regional countries have to walk a tight rope between these two power poles to make sure they present no security threat to each of the rivals. Still, recent developments signal changes to this traditional balance.
On November 2025, the US President Donald Trump met leaders of five Central Asian countries at the White House, a meeting that was interpreted as a serious push by Washington for deeper security foothold, investment on the rare earths, and circumventing China’s influence. Meanwhile, by announcing its joining to the so-called Abraham Accords, which were originally initiated to normalize Arab-Israeli ties, and then presence, along with Uzbekistan, at the Trump’s Board of Peace for Gaza, Kazakhstan sent important signals. All these developments talked about gradual drift towards US-Western front.
After hostilities broke out and Iran’s Supreme Leader Sayyed Ali Khamenei was martyred by the US and Israeli strikes on February 28, most of these countries tried to strike a cautious tone in their official statements. Avoiding any direct mention of the US or Israel, they preferred to stress the need for regional peace, stability, and security. Still, it appears that Iran’s ties with its eastern neighbors are about to face serious and unprecedented challenges.
In March, Kazakhstan formally suspended several major joint projects with Iran, a sign that these nations are effectively waiting to see how the war ends and which way the balance of power tilts.
Mysterious explosions in the Nakhchivan region during the war’s first days, though not claimed by Iran, have also heavily factored into these countries’ security calculations and decision-making. In that vein, Kazakh President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev explicitly labeled Iran a serious threat to regional order. This situation has handed the US and Israel an ideal opportunity to reshape Eurasia’s order, one that sidelines Iran and replaces the Persian-Islamic cultural model with a “Turko-Western” framework.
From that perspective, the explosions in Azerbaijan’s Nakhchivan enclave in the middle of the war take on considerable meaning. Azerbaijan, as a close ally and partner of Israel and the US in the region, wields significant cultural and political influence across Central Asia.
As a key player in the Turko-Western axis, it seeks to minimize Iran’s historic role and influence in the region, paving the way for a new order aligned with Western interests. All of this suggests that Eurasia’s political geography is on the verge of a major transformation, one whose consequences will reach far beyond the military outcome of the current war.
War and restructuring the West Asian trade routes
For years, Iran acted as a reliable transit corridor for the Central Asian states to the high seas. With the start of Russian-Ukrainian war and imposing massive sanctions on Moscow by the West, a need for a southern route was felt more than ever.
When in January 2025 Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian visited Dushanbe, the two counties highlighted the need for development of energy and transit infrastructures. Also after rise to power of Shavkat Mirziyoyev, Tashkent, pushing to cut its dependence on the northern routes that cross Russia, thought about investment in southern routes that cross Iran.
This roughly applied to the other Eurasian countries and they embarked on bilateral and multilateral cooperation with Iran, so much so that in many analyses, the southern route was labeled “Iran corridor.”
Furthermore, this route could have become a key part of the grand North-South Corridor (INSTC), a project Russia has pursued for years to boost its trade links with South Asia and high seas.
But in the current war, these corridors are no longer considered safe, and they all ultimately lead to the Strait of Hormuz, a chokepoint already mired in crisis and restrictions. That has sparked widespread concern across Central Asia and severely disrupted export and import flows. Uzbekistan, for example, has seen much of its exports through Dubai’s Jebel Ali port practically grind to a halt. On top of that, about 60 percent of Uzbekistan’s exports to Turkey and Europe transit through Iranian borders, so any insecurity along this route carries major economic consequences.
All this has pushed Central Asian countries to seek alternatives, routes that may be longer and costlier but can partly bypass the Persian Gulf crisis and its fallout. Leaders in these nations now face an urgent need to keep their foreign trade flowing.
In that vein, Uzbek Agriculture Minister Ibrahim Abdurakhmanov said Central Asian states must ramp up regional cooperation to reduce their dependence on the Middle East as much as possible.
Under these circumstances, the most important alternative is the Trans-Caspian Corridor, also known as the Middle Corridor. This route could potentially sideline not only Iran but also Russia and even China to some degree. It is a scenario that would likely win US approval. Running straight across the Caspian Sea and through Azerbaijan, the Middle Corridor connects Central Asia to Europe, bypassing traditional transit routes through Iran.
Expanding this route could have major geopolitical consequences for both Iran’s and Russia’s national security. Adding weight to that shift, Uzbekistan’s foreign minister recently declared the Middle Corridor his country’s transit priority, a statement signaling a major shift in how regional states view long-term transport and trade routes.
The important point is that the Middle Corridor exactly links to a project the US president last year named after himself, completing the US strategic puzzle. So, the future of Iran’s role in Central Asia is in a sensitive stage, tied to the fate of the current war.
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