Another big dump this week of alleged State Department cables by the activist organization WikiLeaks, from Ashgabat -- with no explanation of why this, why now. Possibly it's due to the second anniversary of the Iranian uprising after the failed June 2009 elections, as all five new published cables, ranging in dates from February 2009 to January 2010, are about Iran.
The US uses Turkmenistan as a listening post on Iran, as we saw from past WikiLeaks revelations. A cable dated January 26, 2010 describes how the source dubbed "Iran Watcher" canvassed Iranians waiting at the Turkmen-Uzbek border in the town of Farap -- a process the cable author admits is "not exactly scientific."
"Obama has not kept his promises," groups of truckers solemnly tell Iran Watcher regarding the end of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
An estimated 70,000 Iranians pass through Turkmenistan every year, says the cable.
Another cable dated March 23, 2009, says hundreds of Iranian tourists took a 140-mile bus ride to spend the Nowruz spring holidays in Ashgabat, where they can buy cheaper clothes and other goods -- and apparently women can take a break from wearing their veils. A comment like this opens up the question of whether fears are justified that Iranians would influence Turkmens, who have lived an isolated existence in the Soviet and post-Soviet eras, toward religious extremism, or whether the more secular Turkmens in fact might influence Iranians.
US Iran watchers also nervously followed President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov's visit to Tehran for energy talks, reported in a cable of March 2, 2009. A source says that the Iranians view themselves as guarantors of regional energy security -- which Turkmenistan finds threatening. Berdymukhamedov and Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini operate on a "much higher intellectual plane than people give them credit for" when it comes to discussions of global energy security, says the cable. The cable also reveals a source that says Ashgabat made a deal to have Iran pay less than Russia for gas in 2009 ($300 per billion cubic meters).
Turkmenistan agreed to make a prisoner exchange with Iran -- apparently a number of Iranians, mainly truck drivers, are in Turkmen jails on drug offenses, and the drivers complain about constant hold-ups and visa problems.
A cable dated February 18, 2009 contains Iran Watcher's interview with a Turkmenistan-trained physician who lived in Iran for some 10 years, who said Iran's indoctrination of young children with "Islam as an ideology" reminderd her of her schooling in the former USSR with the "veneration of the ideology of Lenin."
Watcher tends to ask questions about how the Iranians view the US and its leaders, as much as about what's happening inside Iran or in Turkmen-Iranian relations, and gleans the tid-bit that some affluent Iranian women are buying copies of Michelle Obama's inauguration ball gown for $3000-4000.
WikiLeaks exposes the names of some sources, and crosses out others.
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