«We believe this would be beneficial,» he noted.

«By the way, we are planning to hold a C5+1 meeting in the region (the United States and the five Central Asian countries), which I will attend later this year,» the U.S. Secretary of State said.

C5+1 is a framework for collective engagement between the United States and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Washington has been using this mechanism since around 2015.