President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov and President Dmitry Medvedev spoke on the phone July 30, but as usual, little was said on either the Kremlin or Turkmen government websites about the reason for their call except that they "stressed the importance of implementing mutually beneficial projects." It's not clear where the Russian state company Gazprom's purchases from Turkmenistan stand. Much of Turkmenistan ’s trade these days is made with Russian regions rather than Moscow . Tatarstan’s new President Rustam Minnikhanov will travel to Ashgabat this week, a trip reflective of the fact that some 70 percent of trade between the two countries is now directly made with the Russian Federation ’s regions, says Svetlana Orlova, deputy chairman of the Russian Federation Council who met with her Turkmen counterparts last week.
When President Medvedev met with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi in Milan July 23, experts believe they may have discussed the issue of Turkmenistan 's inclusion in the Southern Corridor project, Oil and Gas Eurasia reported. Konstantin Simonov, general director of the National Foundation for Energy Security, told RBK-TV that the project exacerbates conflict between Gazprom and ENI. Moscow isn't happy with ENI's idea of merging South Stream and the competing Nabucco project -- an idea that came about because of concerns that there is no gas to fill Nabucco, with Turkmenistan reluctant to participate and China having a stake in keeping Turkmenistan's gas for itself, and because the EU will not cooperate with Iran. Earlier this month, ENI worked out with Azerbaijan a plan to ship 8 billion cubic meters of gas from Turkmenistan to Europe .
Meanwhile, Turkmenistan has not specifically commented on the plan, but announced it has increased production of liquefied gas to the "record amount" of 75,000 tons at Turkmengaz's Nayyp gas-processing plant, turkmenistan.ru reported. Paolo Scaroni told reporters July 20 during his trip to Baku that Turkmen gas could be shipped some 300 kilometers (186 miles) across the Caspian Sea to Baku , the Dow Jones News reported. The project would use gas that would have otherwise been flared during Turkmenistan ’s offshore oil-production process and thus have an advantage to the environment, says Scaroni. He said the gas could be compressed in ships, a cheaper method than using liquefied natural gas (LNG) technology. The Turkmen media claims that Turkmenistan is now the largest producer of natural gas in Central Asia .
Turkmenistan ships LNG from the Turkmenbashi oil refineries through the Kiyanly terminal in the north, where the first major upgrade to Turkmenistan 's LNG export facilities has been made, as previously Turkmenistan shipped all LNG by railways and road. The terminal was built by Iran 's Pars Energy company in 2008. The new facilities enable Turkmenistan to increase its output to 276,000 tons a year, turkmenistan.ru reported in December 2009.
Turkmenistan in general has been interested in modernizing and enlarging its port facilities and creating a merchant navy. On July 23, a delegation of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development visited the international seaport in Turkmenbashi to look at constructions projects, which include an expansion of a polypropylene trans-shipment terminal.
President Berdymukhamedov spoke again enthusiastically about the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline at a Cabinet meeting last week. The TAPI technical working group will be convening again soon and the Turkmen leader has expressed his full backing for this precarious project across war-torn areas, in ways that he has not about Nabucco and other projects. The president visited India in March and characterized New Delhi as "deeply interested in the rapid realization" of the project. Indian Deputy Foreign Minister Jayant Prasad was in Ashgabat July 27 to discuss joint energy projects, trend.az reported.
A Russian analyst named Viktor Prudnikov who appears to be a retired Russian army general previously in charge of air defense and relations with Turkmenistan as well as other Central Asian neighbors, has raised concerns in an article for the online Turkmen exiles' publication gundogar.org about whether the U.S. cooperation with Turkmenistan on the Northern Distribution Network to supply troops in Afghanistan violates Turkmenistan's neutrality. Prudnikov claims to have sources within Turkmen intelligence that allegedly have seen military vehicles and ammunition loaded on planes to Afghanistan, and complained that they did not have full access to containers and the shipments could violate Turkmenistan’s oft-noted status of neutrality. As Prudnikov also bears tales of a shooting incident at the Ashgabat incident in which allegedly two Turkmen teenagers were wounded, and claims the U.S. has even flown from Afghanistan into Turkmen airspace without dispatchers' permission, his article must be read with more than a grain of salt. EurasiaNet has not confirmed any of the allegations.
There are several questions that properly arise from this piece, however. Why is a former top military figure, once dismissed by Boris Yeltsin who may have ties to current military leaders, now voicing these concerns, and are they reflective of the thinking of some in the Russian military? And given what we now know of the U.S. payments to Turkmenistan for the use of its air space for some years, in violation of normal procedures, what else may have been going on in this closed society bordering Iran and Afghanistan , where the U.S. has been financing the construction of border facilities and training of border guards?
Among the reasons Turkmenistan does not get as high a profile as it could, and tends to be visited more by American military and oil executives than diplomats and Congressmen is that there has been no U.S. ambassador for more than four years. State Department officials, chagrined at the lapse, now say that a candidate has been found and that the confirmation process will begin in due course, but have not provided the candidate’s name. At one time Ambassador George Krol, who formerly served in Belarus, was tapped for the position, but after waiting some time in vain due to the slowness of confirmation procedures, he went on to become Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, and has now just been chosen by President Barack Obama as the next U.S. envoy to Uzbekistan.
The Najot (Rescue) NGO in Khorezm region of Uzbekistan has once again issued a report claimed to be leaked by Turkmen security officials. The document purports to be a blacklist of categories of people barred from entry to or exit from Turkmenistan . Not surprisingly, the leading human rights advocate on Turkmenistan , Farid Tuhbatullin, head of the Vienna-based Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights, learned that he was allegedly listed as no. 8 on the list, and another leading activist, Vitaly Ponomaryov of Russia’s Memorial Human Rights Center, was at no. 11. Tuhbatullin and other analysts have wondered how a small NGO in neighboring Uzbekistan could obtain such information, and have theorized that the Turkmen Ministry of National Security is attempting to send a warning to political émigrés, journalists, and international human rights groups and others that they cannot expect to get entry visas. The list also has more than 30,000 people in Turkmenistan on it who are now allowed out – these include certain types of government officials and people who are under surveillance.
The Turkmen government has kept several hundred students who had gained admission to foreign universities from leaving their homeland, holding them up with more bureaucratic vetting procedures. While some have finally been allowed to leave, a number remain still without permission. The president announced that 2,800 students will be allowed to go abroad this next semester, but this is believed to be far short of the number of willing candidates.
Catherine A. Fitzpatrick compiles the Turkmenistan weekly roundup for EurasiaNet. She is also editor of EurasiaNet's Sifting the Karakum blog. To subscribe to the weekly email, write [email protected]
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