The Central Asian country is making efforts to improve its investment climate after more than two decades of economic isolation. The closed, autarkic system viewed most foreign investments as a threat. That ended when Islam Karimov, who had led Uzbekistan since before the Soviet breakup, died in 2016.

Russia has deployed several thousand peacekeepers between the sides. Turkey, which was a major factor in helping Azerbaijan reverse its three decades of losses in a 45-day assault, also has officials in the formerly occupied territories of Azerbaijan as part of a joint Russian-Turkish monitoring centre.

While on the surface tame-seeming, the comment was nothing short of a watershed as an acknowledgment that Armenia and Turkey must find a way to co-exist, like it or not, more than 100 years of the deadly events.

President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus has walked a tightrope now for nearly 27 years. He’s frequently shrugged off the “last dictator in Europe”, an “autocrat” and other damning epithets.

Turkey's TAV Airports bought an international airport in Kazakhstan's second biggest city of Almaty and plans to invest $200 million in expanding its capacity, the Kazakhstan Infrastructure Fund said.