Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.

I'm a little late catching this story from neweurasia, but I think it is important to link anyway. Turns out Kyrgyzstan has decided to stop supplying electricity to Tajikistan, which is in the middle of an energy crisis and its most severe winter since independence.

Despite having no long-standing ethnic or cultural ties other than a shared Soviet experience, I have long thought that Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan should be natural allies. Both are very weak and very poor mountainous nations, with little major economic prospects outside of hydroelectricity and potentially mining (and perhaps tourism, too), surrounded by wealthier and much more powerful neighbors. With virtually the same prospects for any kind of economic growth and the same potential buyers and investors for their hydroelectricity, I think Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan would have a lot to gain by working together and coordinating their economic and foreign policies. When Tajikistan President Emomali Rakhmon visited Bishkek last September for a two-day summit, I saw this as a sign of things moving in the right direction. However, this energy shut-off at the worst possible time does not bode well for my high hopes for Kyrgyz-Tajik cooperation.