Uzbekistan’s new foreign policy: Open to all?

Kristiina Silvan is a Research Fellow in the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood and Russia research programme at FIIA. Her research focuses on the political developments in the Central Asian region. In addition to her work at FIIA, she is finalizing her PhD dissertation at the University of Helsinki. The topic of her dissertation is state-affiliated youth activism in post-Soviet Russia and Belarus.

Paul Stronski is a senior fellow in Carnegie’s Russia and Eurasia Program, where his research focuses on the relationship between Russia and neighbouring countries in Central Asia and the South Caucasus. Until January 2015, Stronski served as a senior analyst for Russian domestic politics in the U.S. State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research. He was director for Russia and Central Asia on the U.S. National Security Council Staff from 2012 to 2014, where he supported the president, the national security advisor, and other senior U.S. officials on the development and coordination of policy toward Russia. Before that, he worked as a State Department analyst on Russia from 2011 to 2012, and on Armenia and Azerbaijan from 2007 to 2010.

Umida Hashimova works as an analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses (CNA), a federally funded research and development organization in Arlington, Virginia, on U.S. national security issues. She has many years of experience in research and project management on the Eurasia region and she is a scholar on Central Asia’s current affairs. In her native Uzbekistan, Umida worked for United Nations agencies on economic, illicit drugs, and crime issues. Umida holds a Master in Public Policy concentrating on International Economics from the School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University, and a Master of Arts in Human Rights Law from the University of Essex.

Temur Umarov is an expert on China and Central Asia, consultant at Carnegie Moscow Center and alumnus of the Carnegie-Tsinghua Young Ambassadors and the Carnegie Central Asian Futures programs. A native of Uzbekistan, he has degrees in China Studies and International Relations from the Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration and Moscow State Institute of International Relations.

Arkady Moshes is the Programme Director of the EU’s Eastern Neighbourhood and Russia research programme at FIIA. From 2008 to 2015 he was an Associate Fellow of the Russia and Eurasia Programme at Chatham House. He received his PhD from the Institute of Europe, Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow. His main areas of expertise include Russia-EU relations and the internal and foreign policy of Ukraine and Belarus.