Tashkent expands its borders
About why Uzbekistan and Serbia are important to each other, about President Mirziyoyev's "tiger eye," and the system of balance in the new geopolitical realities
Tashkent Expands Its Borders
On September 7–8, President of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev paid an official visit to Serbia. In all 35 years of Uzbekistan's independence, this was the first visit by the head of our state to this Balkan country, and for this reason alone, the event can be called historic.
Following the talks with Head of State Aleksandar Vučić, the parties signed a Joint Declaration on the Establishment of Strategic Partnership Relations, as well as a package of 20 documents on cooperation in energy, labor migration, international transport, agriculture and water management, pharmaceuticals, and digitalization.
One of Belgrade's streets was named "Tashkent" — a symbolic gesture by which the Serbian side emphasized the new, strategic level of relations.
And what is particularly important, Shavkat Mirziyoyev was awarded Serbia's highest state decoration — the Order of the Republic of Serbia on a Grand Collar.
Formally, the country has held EU candidate status since 2012, and Vučić has repeatedly stated that he sees Serbia as part of the EU, although the deadlines are constantly being pushed back. At the same time, Belgrade has for many years refused to join sanctions against Russia, maintaining its energy and historical partnership with Moscow, while simultaneously building "exceptional" relations, as Vučić put it, with China: from investments in metallurgy to joint infrastructure projects.
Serbia is one of the few countries that manages to maintain such a complex balance in the current geopolitical conditions. It maintains working ties with Russia, scales up projects with China, and does not close off dialogue with Washington. This multi-vector approach gives Belgrade room for maneuver.
The country's economy is growing thanks to investments from various directions, and its policy remains pragmatic. In essence, this is the same principle of multi-vector diplomacy that Uzbekistan is building for itself in Central Asia.
Serbia is an important hub connecting the countries of Central and Western Europe with Turkey, the Middle East, and Central Asia, bypassing sea routes.
For Uzbekistan, which is landlocked and geographically located in the center of the continent, every such point on the map is not just another friendly country, but an element of a systematically formed logistical and political architecture.
For us, Serbia is not a peripheral Balkan country, but the missing link in the chain of the so-called "Middle Corridor." Integrating Belgrade into this logistics directly reduces the time and cost of delivering Uzbek goods to EU markets. In simple terms, this means lowering the cost price of our products, increasing their competitiveness, and boosting generated profits.
Aleksandar Vučić made perhaps the most striking statement of the entire visit: "Uzbekistan has a president who has the 'eye of the tiger.' Which means he wants success, he cares about every part of his nation, and he cares about every problem. And wherever I dug, whatever question I asked, I realized how much Uzbekistan is moving forward."
The visit of the head of our state to Serbia is part of a large, painstaking, and systematic effort to build close strategic relations with countries of diverse geography and significance for a single goal — strengthening the economic and political position of our country.