"[Spanish Foreign] Minister [Miguel Angel] Moratinos has great interest in Central Asia, he has been there four times on official visits, and will go there twice more over the coming months, at the end of April and in early June - he will have made more official visits to Central Asia than any other minister of the European Union", the diplomat added.

The strengthening of ties between the EU and the five countries that make up Central Asia (Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan), will come about through a series of events to be held during the period of the Spanish Presidency, according to Chamorro.

“Under the rotating presidency, we will be able to carry out a range of actions, including a ministerial EU-Central Asia meeting in Tashkent (the capital of Uzbekistan) at the end of April, a series of Cooperation Council meetings with the five countries, a dialogue meeting between the EU and the SCO, and we are organising a conference for the ministers of Justice of the EU and Central Asia in Dushanbe (the capital of Tajikistan), to be held on 14 and 15 June”, said the ambassador.

Santiago Chamorro also stressed the “geostrategic importance of the region”, since these five Asian countries are the “centre of gravity” of “three geopolitical tectonic plates”: Russia, China and South Asia; and emphasised the need to involve Central Asia “in the peace and reconstruction process” in Afghanistan.