Rubio seeks to strengthen US foothold in Central Asia

SAMARKAND: US Secretary of State Marco Rubio launches into talks on Monday with key Central Asian states before heading to India on a tour to a region with vast natural resources and China as a key competitor.

Rubio arrived in Uzbekistan's Silk Road city of Samarkand late Sunday to prepare for talks with top officials from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and the Uzbek hosts.

The leaders of the five former Soviet republics held talks with US President Donald Trump at the White House in November last year.

At the head of a delegation that includes 200 business executives, Rubio will visit the Samarkand's old city, a historic staging post between China and the West, before starting talks aimed at the modern-day rivalry with China.

With the United States stuck in a war with Iran and unable to halt the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Rubio has stepped up his foreign travel with recent trips to Europe and Latin America while leaving Trump to handle the conflicts and the US mid-term elections.

But Rubio insisted this week's tour is of strategic importance.

"This is an important relationship," he said shortly before his departure. "There's countries you'd like to get to because we want to build our relationships with them."

A senior State Department official told reporters on Friday that Rubio was demonstrating US goodwill towards the "deepening partnership across Central Asia", especially in the energy sector.

- INDIA DEAL 'VERY CLOSE' -

After Uzbekistan, Rubio will go to India where the US ambassador is Sergio Gor, who was born in Uzbekistan and is also the US special envoy for Central Asia.

The central Asian states remain linked to Russia by energy pipelines and security and migratory networks, but Russian influence has eroded since the start of its invasion of Ukraine.

And China has reaped the benefits. It is now the main trade partner of all five nations.

Chinese companies have signed a number of energy-related deals, seeking to buy natural gas in Turkmenistan, uranium in Kazakhstan and rare earths in Tajikistan.

On his second visit to India this year, Rubio will have stops in Mumbai and Jamnagar in Gujarat state. Both are major port cities.

"We're very close" to a trade deal with India, a second senior US official said of negotiations with the Asian giant that have dragged on for months.

The two sides reached a provisional agreement in February aimed at reducing US tariffs on Indian products.

But legal battles in US courts over Trump's tariffs have fuelled uncertainty about when a bilateral trade deal could take effect.

India-US relations were also rattled when Trump imposed 25 per cent tariffs on Indian goods in retaliation for Delhi's purchases of Russian oil, but those duties have since been lifted. --AFP