President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov relieved Prosecutor General Chary Hojamyradov of his duties in accordance with a request from the Mejlis (parliament), trend.az reported. On the surface, the dismissal appeared to be related to Hojamyradov’s poor health and his petition to retire addressed to the Mejlis, which had formally appointed him. In office for only a year after serving previous stints as the top law-enforcer, the excuse of illness seemed plausible, given that when Hojamyradov was in office before, he also took a brief medical leave of absence before being reinstated in 2010. Yet according to Chronicles of Turkmenistan, Hojamyradov was forced to step down after a scandal broke out in his office involving the discovery of five staff members with dual Turkmen and Russian citizenship.
The staff members fell into a trap, says Russian correspondent Arkady Dubnov, writing for Moscow News. Although the employees knew they had to conceal their second passports, when their bosses announced that they knew the names of those with Russian citizenship and suggested that they turn over their second passports, when they did, they were all forced to write letters of resignation. Their fate is not known.
Similar checks of passport status are underway at other state agencies, including Turkmentelekom, the Ministry of Defense, the Ministry of Healthcare, and various high-class hotels that are under control of the presidential administration. Staff at the Nissa, Oguzkent and President hotels were fired for having Russian citizenship, says Dubnov.
The latest purge is a renewal of a campaign that began back in 2003, when past dictator Saparmurat Niyazov unilaterally withdrew from an agreement with Russia to recognize Russian and Turkmen dual citizenship, and announced that only Turkmen citizenship would be valid. He acknowledged Russian passports obtained before April 2003 would continue to be recognized, but that in accordance with new procedures, Russians in Turkmenistan would have to choose Turkmen citizenship when new passports became mandatory by 2013. Russians who failed to get the new Turkmen passports would be unable to depart from Turkmenistan after 2013 because their old Turkmen passports will expire.
Hundreds of thousands of Russians left Turkmenistan permanently after 2003, but an unknown number remained, attempting to hang on to both passports and travel back and forth. Now, they are increasingly facing difficulties or being denied freedom of movement.
Dubnov says a confrontation between Moscow and Ashgabat is brewing over the passport issue. "This will enable Ashgabat to accuse Moscow of 'imperial pretensions' in order to more effectively deflect Russia's attempts to interfere with its plans for the Trans Caspian pipeline, which will link the Caspian coasts of Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan," he said.
Konstantin Zatulin, a member of the State Duma or Russian parliament, sent an inquiry to Russian Foreign Ministery Sergei Lavrov on October 3, asking whether in fact dual citizens of Turkmenistan were being pressured to give up their second, Russian citizenship, and asked what the Russian government intended to do to protect the rights of Russian citizens in this regard.
The Turkmen position has never really changed since Niyazov’s ultimatum in 2003, but Ashgabat only tended tactically to enforce it as relations with the Kremlin grew hot and cold. Mostly, they are cold now and Turkmenistan evidently doesn’t see any advantage in keeping Russians around. With the Turkmen leadership’s gas disputes with Russia’s state energy monopoly Gazprom; the expulsion of the Russian telecom MTS when its five-year contract expired; and the growing cooperation with China and other Asian and Middle Eastern partners, Turkmenistan increasingly feels it does not need to suffer what it sees as a security risk from Russians.
In recent years, Ashgabat has had only selective trade dealings with some more friendly Russian Federation subjects such as Tatarstan and Leningrad Province for specific purchases of vehicles and weapons, and maintains ties only with certain long-time loyal Russian companies such as Itera. At one time, Turkmenistan relied on Russian engineers in the oil and gas industry; now it has Chinese experts and its own citizens educated in Russia. While Ashgabat may be overplaying its hand, risking the anger of not only a powerful neighbor but a sizeable minority at home, evidently it feels there will be no significant cost.
To be sure, hundreds of Turkmen do still study abroad in Russia, including in Russia’s top oil and gas institutes, and there are nominal cultural exchanges and some latitude for the Russian Orthodox Church in Turkmenistan. Yet, as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty notes, Russian language study in Central Asia has declined significantly, to the point where Central Asians, particularly of the younger generation, do not have a lingua franca to speak to each other, let alone the outside world.
Turkmen students have also increasingly turned to Turkey for their education or for illegal migrant work; the Turkmen language is close to Turkish. Russian TV channels are still available, but Turkish satellite programs have taken their place. The government also recently cracked down on Turkish schools, fearing they represented the possible intrusion of religious extremism, yet some schools remain, including a leading university, and 600 Turkish companies continue to operate in Turkmenistan, which has extensive ties with the Turkish leadership.
A reporter who covered the explosion in Abadan in July, the news of which was suppressed by the Turkmen regime, has now been arrested and sentenced to five years in prison. Dovletmyrat Yazkuliyev (also spelled as Yazgulyev), a stringer for Radio Azatlyk, the Turkmen Service for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL), had earlier been detained and warned by authorities that he should cease his independent journalism. He was told he would be charged with "disseminating defamatory information through the media" and "causing national, social, and religious provocations" if he continued to blog about sensitive information. While eventually the Turkmen government admitted that the explosion involved an arms depot as well as fireworks and acknowledged several deaths, the total number of deaths immediately after the accident and later, during the clean-up, was never disclosed. Officials failed to admit the extent of the damage, human rights groups reported, embarrassed by the poor management and corruption implicated in the disaster, and by the disclosure of such a large stockpile of armaments
Yazkuliyev recorded a message the day before his arrest in which he described surveillance by security agents and intimidation of his family, stating, "I believe it was done because of my work for Radio Azatlyk."
When Yazkuliyev was then detained in Akhal province, there was no mention of his “defamatory” reports, but instead he was suddenly accused of "influencing or enabling" an attempted suicide by a family member. According to a report from the Committee to Protect Journalists, Oguljamal Yazliyeva, RFE/RL's Turkmen Service director, said authorities pressured Yazguliyev's relatives in mid-September to sign a statement saying that Yazguliyev had tried to get his sister-in-law to commit suicide. His relatives said they have since attempted to retract the statements and appeal for the correspondent’s release to no avail.
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 with a digest of international and regional press, write [email protected]
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