The US have increased the number of trainings of military units in Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Azerbaijan over the past two years, reports the Eurasianet.org in an article written by journalist Joshua Kucera.

The US military aid comes under Section 1004 of the National Defense Authorization Act, which allows the U.S. Department of Defense to train and equip foreign security forces involved in counternarcotics and transnational organized-crime missions. The training is not widely advertised, but, instead is included into the US State Department's annual report.

There were held military trainings in 2015 in the South Caucasus and Central Asia with 1153 militaries. At the same time, the American servicemen planned increase  the number of exercises.

In 2016, American servicemen had planned to conduct 2 trainings with the representatives of the Ministry of National Security in Azerbaijan. “That ministry was disbanded in late 2015, however. The U.S. embassy in Baku did not respond to a request for clarification. While the U.S. State Department follows a policy of approximate military aid parity between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the DoD does not follow the same guidelines and Armenia has received no training through Section 1004 or any other special forces training program,” the author writes.

The article stresses, that the fate of the trainings under Trump administration is still unclear. Trump promised to cut the foreign aid and  strengthen the fight against Islamist terrorist groups, the threats of which are used by  the governments of Central Asian countries as a means to justify their need for military aids.