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The number of Islamists in Kyrgyz and Kazakh prisons is small but growing, in both size and political significance.

Oil and gas are proving as much a burden as a benefit to Central Asia. The three oil and gas producers in the region – Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan – are showing signs of the “resource curse” under which energy-rich nations fail to thrive or develop distorted, unstable economies.

The European Union is not living up to its potential as a geopolitical actor in Central Asia. The level of EU interest has been low, and Brussels is doing little to shape developments in a region that has mostly seen marked declines in its economic fortunes, political freedoms and social development in recent years but remains of considerable strategic significance.

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) emerged in a wave of euphoria surrounding the events of the late 1980s in the former Soviet bloc.

The problems associated with drugs in Afghanistan and Central Asia have steadily worsened over the past two decades. Opiates have fuelled conflict throughout the region and are likely to have been a significant source of financial support for terrorist organisations with a global reach.