In June, Ambassador Francois Zimeray, France's envoy for human rights, visited Ashgabat, met with Turkmen government officials, and said he saw a genuine desire by Turkmen authorities to improve the human rights situation, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's (RFE/RL) Turkmen Service reported. Zimeray told RFE/RL that while the human rights situation is still poor, it is better than under former President Saparmurat Niyazov, when "there were no human rights at all." While acknowledging that no major improvements have been made by President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov since he came to power, Zimeray nevertheless credited the Turkmen government with a wish to improve their record on human rights, specifically regarding the judiciary, prisons, and other aspects of the legal system.
Yet the French ambassador was not allowed to visit two Turkmen reporters who had been imprisoned for helping a French TV journalist. Later, it emerged that human rights activists who sought to meet with the French envoy found their phones were disconnected and their homes were put under surveillance by the Turkmen security agents, the Institute for War and Peace Reporting Central Asia reported.
Even so, the French ambassador decided to maintain cooperation with Turkmen authorities. "My point is not only to judge, to shame, to blame," Zimeray said in Ashgabat, according to an RFE/RL report. "It's also to encourage, to say, 'OK, this is what I felt in your country, this is what I understood from our conversations, and I deeply encourage you to go ahead, and we will support you in this direction.'
French non-governmental organizations have been among the most outspoken in the world regarding the situation in Turkmenistan. The media watchdog Reporters Without Borders has placed President Berdymukhamedov on a list of "predators of the press" for his failure to tolerate any free media and the continued jailing of journalists. Doctors Without Borders, which worked for 10 years in Turkmenistan, finally had to leave when the physicians failed to gain cooperation from the Ministry of Health, and they published a scathing indictment of the poor medical system, where a combination of the continuation of discredited Soviet-era practices and suppression of factual reports constitute medical malpractice. The Paris-based Association for Human Rights in Central Asia said NGOs should be included in the bilateral human rights dialogue, but the Turkmen authorities did not allow them to participate. And the French ambassador himself said a human rights dialogue between professionals -- police and military officials -- from both countries would likely to be more effective than discussions between rights activists, RFE/RL reported.
With the human rights topic removed as an irritant to bilateral relations, the way was paved for the French trade delegation to travel to Ashgabat two weeks later. President Berdymukhamedov received Anne-Marie Idrac, Minister of State for Foreign Trade of the French Republic and Senator Aimery de Montesquiou Fezensac, Personal Envoy of the President of France for Political and Economic Relations between France and Central Asia. The French officials had traveled to Ashgabat with a delegation to participate in the first meeting of the intergovernmental Turkmen-French commission for economic cooperation. As with Turkmenistan's new partners, the commission serves as a vehicle for organizing business deals in the areas of energy, construction, textile, transportation and other sectors. The Turkmen government is already heavily engaged with the French construction company Bouygues, which has built most of the white-marbled government palaces in Ashgabat.
The French decision to forego vocal human rights criticism in favor of technical assistance such as police training and a prioritization of trade relations follow a path already carved out last year by the European Union with the end of the moratorium on the interim trade agreement, and by the United States, which sent a large delegation of oil companies to meet with Turkmenistan two weeks ago, leaving human rights issues to be dealt with quietly by State Department officials.
So far, no movement on any specific case of a political prisoner or any one of many troubling issues has been seen with this new approach, which human rights activists fear may free the Turkmen government's hand to engage in further crackdowns, rather than to incentivize officials in Ashgabat to liberalize their system.
This week, a dozen people with dual Russian-Turkmen citizenship were blocked from leaving Turkmenistan as they attempted to board planes; one man, a former journalist for Neitralnyi Turkmenistan, the state newspaper, was intending to go to Istanbul for eye surgery. The Turkmen government ruled last year that it would no long recognize dual citizenship, and has asked that Russians apply for new Turkmen passports. Migration officials are now saying that in order to leave the country, Russians must either renounce their Russian citizenship and apply for Turkmen citizenship, or renounce their Turkmen citizenship and obtain an exit visa to depart permanently from Turkmenistan. In 2003, when Moscow and Ashgabat were engaged in a protracted dispute about the price of gas, the deceased dictator Sapurmurat Niyazov said that dual citizenship would no longer be recognized and tens of thousands of Russian-speakers, feeling threatened and experiencing harassment in some cases, left for Russia and other former Soviet republics. Eventually when the pricing dispute was settled, Russia dropped its insistence on the recognition of dual citizenship, leaving the Russian community in Turkmenistan feeling unprotected. Under President Berdymukhamedov, some conditions for Russians have been eased with more educational and cultural facilities, but the chief issue of passports was not resolved, and is now increasingly adversely affecting those who held citizenship in both countries.
Even with the supposed obstacle of human rights criticism now removed from the Western trade relationship with Turkmenistan, foreign partners have concentrated on the lack of a trusted legal environment to safeguard investments and have been working at trying to improve the outlook for business in Turkmenistan. The semi-official Turkmenistan.ru news website reported that the Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international group that works to combat money-laundering, decided to recognize Turkmenistan as a “no-risk” country. The assertion could not be immediately verified on the FATF website. Only a few months ago FATF had announced that it was keeping Turkmenistan on its list of high-risk countries because Ashgabat had not taken sufficient steps to prevent money laundering or the financing of terrorism. Earlier, Turkmenistan became a full member of the Eurasian Group on Combating Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (EAG). The EAG said Turkmenistan will soon establish a regime to help integrate Turkmenistan into the international financial system.
USAID and Chevron, partners in the project of assisting Turkmenistan with its reforms, have jointly supported a month-long training for 28 specialists from Turkmenistan's key economic agencies to learn managerial accounting. The program is designed to bring Turkmen capacity up to the level required for international financial reporting standards. Not leaving their own still-considerable dealings to chance, Russia's State Duma (parliament) passed a law which obligates Turkmenistan and Russia to protect each others' investments and develop mutually beneficial trade cooperation.
Sign up for Eurasianet's free weekly newsletter. Support Eurasianet: Help keep our journalism open to all, and influenced by none.