Yale Globalization Center to Host Conference on Security in Central Asia

The Yale Center for the Study of Globalization will host its first international conference from September 19 - 21 on The Silk Road in the 21st Century – Security and Insecurity in Central Asia and the Caucasus. The conference will be held in the Yale Law School Auditorium, 127 Wall Street, and is free and open to the public.

Highlights of the conference will include a live video teleconference with the Presidents of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Kyrgyzstan; an address by Ahmed Rashid, author of Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia; a discussion between the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia and former U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott on the challenge of peace in the Caucasus; and a talk on U.S. Interests in Central Asia and the Caucasus by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State B. Lynn Pascoe.

Conference panels will explore issues of geopolitics and regional interests of the Central Asia/Caucasus countries; areas of future cooperation or conflict; narcotics and crime; Islamic movements; and sources of conflict and instability in the region. To view the full agenda and to register for the conference, please visit the Center’s website at www.ycsg.yale.edu.

The conference provides a forum for bringing practitioners together with academics to focus on the eight states of Central Asia and the Caucasus that gained their independence from the USSR just over a decade ago - Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. The societies, economies, political systems and security establishments of the many ethnic groups that inhabit these countries have long been, and continue to be, interconnected. The sudden shift of global attention toward Central Asia and the Caucasus in the aftermath of the terrorist strikes against the U.S. on September 11, 2001 and the subsequent war in Afghanistan have revealed important factors affecting international security and an enormous gap in our understanding of them. The most acute threats to Central Asian stability include the uninterrupted flows of insurgents, drugs, weapons, and refugees across the region’s porous borders. September 11 and its aftermath have heightened the world’s awareness of the strategic importance of Central Asia and the Caucasus and increased the stakes of international involvement in the region’s affairs.

The conference was organized in partnership with the Dayan and Jaffe Centers of Tel Aviv University and the Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation (TESEV) to contribute to effective, international engagement in the region.