What is driving Israel's expanding footprint in Central Asia?

As Israel faces mounting international pressure over the genocide in Gaza, it has been quietly deepening another set of relationships - this time through diplomacy, investment, and security cooperation in Central Asia.

The region’s authoritarian political systems, growing ties with Washington, and efforts to diversify external partnerships have created openings for Israel to deepen relationships beyond the question of Palestine, strengthen its presence in Iran's neighbourhood, and secure interests ranging from energy to defence.

From Kazakhstan to Azerbaijan: Building a regional network

The most notable development has been in Kazakhstan, Central Asia’s largest economy. In November 2025, Kazakhstan joined the Abraham Accords - the Trump-brokered 2020 normalisation framework between Israel and several Arab states - amid a broader US push to deepen economic and strategic ties with Astana.

Since Kazakhstan had maintained diplomatic relations with Israel since 1992, its accession represented less a breakthrough in bilateral relations than a political signal to Washington. It came alongside $20 billion US-Kazakh agreements, including a Boeing deal and cooperation on critical minerals. Kazakhstan’s accession also created a precedent for extending the Abraham Accords beyond the Middle East.

Kazakhstan is already an important energy partner for Israel, supplying roughly a quarter of its crude oil imports. The oil trade has attracted criticism that continued petroleum supplies could engage states’ obligations under the Genocide Convention.

Beyond energy, bilateral economic ties are expanding: Kazakhstan reported $162.4 million in trade with Israel between January and November 2025, while Israeli investment in the country over the past two decades has reached approximately $500 million.

Yet headline trade figures do not necessarily capture the full strategic significance of the relationship, particularly where energy and defence transactions are concerned.

The relationship also has a significant security dimension. Military cooperation predates the Abraham Accords and encompasses unmanned aerial systems, artillery and rocket systems, communications, surveillance and radar technologies. This makes the relationship more than a conventional arms market: it creates technological and institutional links between the two countries’ security establishments.

Reports that Israeli surveillance technologies have been used in Kazakhstan have also raised questions about the implications of this cooperation for domestic surveillance and political control.

Azerbaijan adds another dimension to this emerging network. While Baku already maintains one of Israel’s closest strategic partnerships in the region, its importance to Israel’s Central Asian ambitions extends beyond bilateral ties. Azerbaijan is a key participant in the Middle Corridor, the trade and transport route linking China and Central Asia to Europe through the Caspian Sea, the South Caucasus and Turkey, while bypassing both Iran and Russia.

It is also part of the Organisation of Turkic States and participates in the “5+1” format connecting the five Central Asian republics with Azerbaijan. These overlapping networks give Israel potential indirect channels into Central Asia, allowing it to benefit from regional connectivity without having to replicate its bilateral relationship with Azerbaijan across every Central Asian state.

One possible next step would be for Israel to establish a low-level consultative format with the five Central Asian states and Azerbaijan.

Because Israel already maintains diplomatic relations with all six, such a mechanism could initially be framed around economic development, technological innovation and other non-political areas.

Over time, however, the platform could become linked to the broader ecosystem of the Abraham Accords, extending cooperation into more politically sensitive areas such as defence, cybersecurity and regional security.

This would give Israel a potential mechanism to gradually introduce Iran-related matters into its engagement with Central Asian governments, encouraging them to deepen security ties with Israel and diversify away from Tehran without requiring them to formally align with Israel or join the Accords.

What begins as a low-level economic and technological dialogue could thus evolve into another layer of Israel's regional security network around Iran.

Beyond normalisation: Israel's expanding Central Asian footprint

If Kazakhstan represents Israel’s most significant opening into Central Asia, Uzbekistan could provide the next. Uzbek copper exports to Israel nearly doubled in the first half of 2025, while diplomatic contacts have intensified.

The October 2025 visit by the Speaker of the Knesset to Tashkent was particularly notable. Yet the relationship’s significance goes beyond trade. In 2021, Uzbekistan committed up to $50 million to the Abraham Fund, established by the United States, Israel and the UAE to promote private-sector investment and regional economic development. The fund was explicitly linked to the objectives of the Abraham Accords.

Tashkent has also moved closer to Washington’s emerging diplomatic initiatives. In March 2025, more than 50 American rabbis appealed to President Donald Trump to expand the Abraham Accords to Uzbekistan, alongside Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan. In January 2026, Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev signed the charter of Trump’s Board of Peace, making Uzbekistan one of its founding members alongside Kazakhstan and other states.

None of this means that Uzbekistan has decided to join the Abraham Accords. It does, however, illustrate how the economic and diplomatic architecture surrounding the Accords can expand without formal normalisation.

For Israel, Uzbekistan offers a large market, significant mineral resources and a strategically important position at the centre of Central Asia. For Tashkent, closer relations with Israel and the US provide additional economic, technological and diplomatic options as it diversifies its external partnerships.

An unusual example illustrates how these economic links intersect with Israel’s wartime economy. Israeli-owned textile factories in Uzbekistan employ hundreds of Muslim workers to produce Jewish religious garments, including tallit and tzitzit for Israeli soldiers.

The episode offers an unusually tangible illustration of how commercial integration can intersect with Israel’s wartime economy, even where governments themselves have avoided formally aligning with Israeli policy.

Israel’s relations with the remaining Central Asian states - Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan - remain more modest, but Tel Aviv has sought to expand them through technology, agriculture, tourism and other forms of cooperation. Turkmenistan is particularly significant because of its roughly 1,000-kilometre border with Iran.

The inauguration of Israel’s new embassy building in Ashgabat in 2023 underscored the importance Israel attaches to the relationship. Given Turkmenistan’s geographic position on Iran’s northern periphery, closer Israeli engagement should also be viewed through the broader lens of Israel's efforts to strengthen relations around Iran.

Tajikistan presents a more difficult but potentially consequential case. Its Persian language and shared historical heritage underpin extensive cultural and political ties with Tehran. These connections give Iran a stronger position than in much of the rest of Central Asia and make a major Israeli strategic opening more difficult.

Israel has nevertheless sought to cultivate ties, including through agricultural and technical cooperation and, in 2025, tourism diplomacy. Kyrgyzstan’s relationship with Israel remains smaller still, but cooperation in areas such as agriculture, healthcare and technology provides channels for gradual engagement.

In this context, energy supplies, arms sales, surveillance technologies, investment and infrastructure links between Israel and the Central Asian states can create forms of interdependence that remain largely insulated from disagreements over the Palestinian issue.

The more deeply these relationships become institutionalised, the harder it may become for criticism over Gaza to translate into meaningful constraints on Israel's regional reach.

For Iran, the implications extend beyond the growth of Israel’s bilateral ties. As Israel builds relationships with states on Iran’s northern periphery, it gains additional channels through which to cultivate security, technological and economic partnerships in Tehran’s neighbourhood.

These relationships could also encourage Central Asian governments to diversify further away from Iran, narrowing Tehran’s room for manoeuvre regionally.

In this sense, Central Asia offers Israel not only new markets and diplomatic partners, but a potential means of gradually reshaping the strategic environment around Iran, even as growing international pressure over Gaza makes such alternative partnerships increasingly valuable.

Rovshan Mammadli is a Baku-based journalist and independent analyst. Holding a BA in Israel and Middle East Studies and an MA in International Policy Studies, he focuses on Azerbaijan’s foreign policy, Middle East politics, and peace and security in the South Caucasus

Follow him on X: @MammadliRovshan

Edited by Charlie Hoyle