de Cordier, Bruno. "The economic cooperation organization: Towards a new silk road on the ruins of the cold war?". Central Asian Survey, Vol.15, No.1 (1996):47-57.

de Cordier, Bruno. "The economic cooperation organization: Towards a new silk road on the ruins of the cold war?". Central Asian Survey, Vol.15, No.1 (1996):47-57.

• On 16 February 1992, President Hashemi Rafsanjani of Iran announced that the Economic Cooperation Organization [ECO] -- an alliance of Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan which had been defunct for more than a decade -- would be promoting economic integration in Central Asia (47).
• The Summit resolved to open ECO membership to Azerbaijan and the Central Asian republics. They also discussed reducing tariffs on industrial goods, founding a common airline, founding a common development bank, and coordinating maritime activities in the Caspian Sea (49).
• Another summit in Islamabad on 18 November 1992 saw Azerbaijan, Afghanistan, and the five Central Asian republics officially joined the ECO (49).
• The ECO originated in August 1959 as an anti-Soviet alliance in the Middle East between Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and Great Britain with the signing of the Baghdad Pact, creating the Central Treaty Organization. The USA later gained observe status and signed bilateral defense agreements with all members (47).
• The organization always had an economic element, initially focusing on the construction of common rail, road, and telecommunications infrastructure deemed necessary for effective military cooperation. Britain and the US contributed significant funding for these projects (47).
• On 3 July 1964, the Middle Eastern members of the Central Treaty Organization decided to institutionalize their cooperation in transport and telecommunications by creating the ECO under the Treaty of Izmir. While created as an economic division of the Central Treaty Organization, the ECO continued to exist after the Treaty of Baghdad was terminated following the 1979 Islamic Revolution (47-48).
• The collapse of the Soviet Union marks a major change in the foreign policy orientations of the ECO member states. Before 1979, the ECO and the Central Treaty Organization served to contain Soviet influence in the Middle East. The end of this alignment of interests because of the Islamic Revolution in Iran and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan led to ECO to effectively stop functioning until the recent 1992 Tehran Summit (48).
• All of the ECO members faced similar geopolitical scenarios at the end of the Cold War, ending up relatively isolated in the global system, dominated economically by export industries in search of new markets, having developed port infrastructure not available to the Central Asian states, and historical ties with the region (48).
• The clearest benefits of membership in the ECO are geopolitical and economic, in that the ports of Iran, Pakistan, and Turkey provide far more connection between Central Asian and global markets than Russian markets. To this end, the priority goal of the ECO is to develop telecommunications and infrastructure between member states (49-50).
• An 'action plan' was created at the 1993 Quetta Summit to connect all roads and railways currently terminating at borders, establish airline flights between all members, link all power grids by the 21st Century, develop a uniform customs and visa system, and open an ECO development bank (50).
• The ECO development bank was created as a result of this summit, consisting of a $400 million fund raised mainly from Iranian oil revenues with less contributions by other states (50).
• The closure of Soviet borders in 1929 severely damaged the trade routes which had historically existed between Central Asia and its neighbors. Connections from Uzbekistan to Afghanistan and from Turkmenistan to Iran can be quickly reopened to the great benefit of all parties (50).
• Although Pakistan and Turkey are rapidly developing internal markets, the recent recession in the EU and USA has dampened export markets for all ECO members, leading them to search for new markets in Central Asia (50).
• The Central Asian republics were almost entirely commodity-producing and deindustrialized territories at the time of independence, producing raw goods processed elsewhere in the USSR. The republics remain dependent on their old export markets in Russia for mainly agricultural products (51).
• Membership in the ECO will certainly not change the dependency of the Central Asian republics on Russian markets for agricultural exports, but it can provide alternative markets for these exports which can reduce the economic and political clout of Russia in Central Asia. Furthermore, economic integration will provide the Central Asian states with access to cheaper consumer goods than those available on Russian markets (51).
• The author proposes the ECO as a means of mutually beneficial economic cooperation where the improved capabilities and technology of Turkey, Pakistan, and Iran can assist in the economic development of Central Asia while benefitting from new markets, the transit of Central Asian resources, and the surplus of skilled workers in the former USSR (51-52).
• The ECO provides a regional forum to discuss and coordinate responses to transnational issues like trafficking, ecological damage, refugee flows, and spillover of conflicts. Many of these problems remain contemporary largely because of the failure of states to coordinate their responses (52-53).
• The ECO still faces a number of significant threats to successful economic integration of the Central Asian region, mainly the persistence rivalry between Turkey and Iran, the existence of conflicts throughout the region, and Russian and Uzbekistani hostility to ECO expansion (53-56).
• The tension between Turkey and Iran ultimately stems from divergent visions for the ECO. Turkey seeks to retain a purely economic focus, whereas Iran would like to include cultural and common security components to the agreement to create an 'Islamic bloc' with the Central Asian states. This dispute has prevented further integration, as Turkey frequently refuses to endorse the popular broad approach of Iranian foreign policy (53-54).
• The ECO territory contains at least three active armed conflicts: Nagorno-Karabakh, the Kurdish insurgency in Turkey, and the civil war in Afghanistan. These conflicts impede any attempts at developing secure infrastructure and trade. Moreover, the unwillingness of Turkey to involve the ECO in diplomatic affairs has prevented the group from engaging constructively in solving these conflicts (55).
• The strategic posture of Uzbekistan also undermines the expansion of ECO influence in the region, as President Islom Karimov has aligned with Russia as Moscow's core partner against Islamic extremism in Tajikistan and Afghanistan. Russian opposition to the ECO within the context of the partnership between Russia and Uzbekistan will likely diminish the organization's influence (55-56).