The leader of the largest country in Central Asia has called for a union of the “stans” to boost living standards and improve stability in the region.

Nursultan Nazarbayev, the President of Kazakhstan, said that a union with Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan offered the brightest future for Central Asia. He urged his fellow leaders to consider his proposal for a Union of Central Asian States.

A “Uni-Stan” across Central Asia would have, at 55 million, a population smaller than Britain’s but would cover an area almost as large as the European Union, sandwiched between the Middle East and the booming economies of Russia, China and India. “It is an utterly natural thing to do,” Mr Nazarbayev said in an interview with Kazakh TV.

“This region can fully provide itself with food, fully provide itself with energy, and so on. It would even have a self-sufficient market. One wonders what else one needs.”

The proposal would bring together some of the world’s richest sources of energy in a trading bloc based on the ancient “silk road” between Europe and Asia.

Kazakhstan may have been lampooned by the comedian Sacha Baron Cohen’s creation of Borat but it attracts huge interest from foreign investors. Bigger than Western Europe, with a population of only 15 million, it has vast mineral wealth. Turkmenistan has only 5 million people and sits on the world’s fifth-largest reserves of natural gas.

Mr Nazarbayev’s spokesman, Erlan Baizhanov, told The Times yesterday that Kazakhstan wanted to create a single economic space with free movement of goods, people and capital between the five former Soviet republics. “It is close to the model of the European Union. The purpose of the project would be to ensure security, economic growth, political stability and prosperity for the region,” he said. The “Uni-Stan” concept faces considerable hurdles, however. Most of the countries are ruled by authoritarian leaders who pay scant regard to human rights and democracy.

Mr Nazarbayev has dominated Kazakhstan since independence in 1991. He was re-elected in 2005 in an election described by international observers as neither free nor fair.

Turkmenistan was ruled with an iron fist for 21 years until his death by Saparmurat Niyazov. His successor, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, was elected in February from the only legal political party.

President Karimov has ruled Uzbekistan since 1990, where a centrally controlled economy has struggled to create wealth and jobs for its people.

Kyrgyzstan has been in political crisis since a popular revolt ousted the former ruler Askar Akayev in 2005.

Tajikistan was plunged into a five-year civil war after independence that cost 50,000 lives and forced one in ten of its six million people to flee.

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