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Secretary Rubio Welcomes the C5+1 Foreign Ministers to the State Department, Nov. 5, 2025

November 5, 2025 · U.S. Department of State · 0:17:10

Embedded from the source channel — never re-uploaded. Watch on YouTube

What happened

Secretary of State Marco Rubio hosted the foreign ministers of the five Central Asian republics — Kazakhstan’s Yermek Kosherbayev, the Kyrgyz Republic’s Jeenbek Kulubaev, Tajikistan’s Sirojiddin Muhriddin, Turkmenistan’s Rashid Meredov and Uzbekistan’s Bakhtiyor Saidov — at a C5+1 welcome reception in the Benjamin Franklin Room at the Department of State on November 5, 2025, on the eve of President Trump’s meeting with the five countries’ presidents, according to the department’s broadcast (uploaded November 6).

Deputy Secretary Christopher Landau opened by saying the President recognizes that foreign policy “isn’t just about the same relationships that we have been developing for the last 80 or 100 years,” and that Central Asia has not had the attention it deserves; Senate Foreign Relations Chairman Jim Risch also addressed the reception, and Special Envoy Sergio Gor described the C5+1 platform as central to the administration’s vision of expanding cooperation on energy, infrastructure and economic growth.

Rubio framed the gathering as interest alignment. “When does foreign policy work best? It works best when the national interest of two countries are aligned,” he said. From the U.S. side, that means markets for American innovation, business and products; from the Central Asian side, turning natural resources into diversified economies rather than remaining only a source of energy and minerals. He acknowledged a decade of relative American neglect of the region — “about 10 years since there was a gathering of this kind” — said he personally intends to visit all five countries in the coming year, and thanked Senator Steve Daines as the Senate’s leading advocate for closer Central Asia engagement.

Why it matters

The reception formally reopened a U.S.-Central Asia channel the Secretary himself described as neglected for a decade, with the region’s critical minerals and energy framed as an alignment of national interests — the diplomatic front door to the presidential summit that followed the next day.

Sources: U.S. Department of State, “Secretary Rubio Delivers Remarks at the C5+1 Welcome Reception” (official upload, embedded above). Remarks as delivered 2025-11-05; transcript reviewed in the site’s private research store; full transcript at state.gov.