Turkmenistan Weekly News Analysis

Turkmenistan began to deliver on promises to diversify transit routes for its rich energy resources to world markets. From September 9-20, with the support from the Asian Development Bank (ADB), Turkmenistan lead a road-show to New-York, London, and Singapore to show off the planned Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project, to global energy players such as US Chevron and Exxon Mobil, British BP and BG Group, German RWE, and Malaysian Petronas. Turkmenistan hosted a meeting of the TAPI steering committee to discuss the formation of an international consortium. President Berdymukhamedov declared recently that Turkmenistan is willing to expand energy cooperation with Europe. A source within the Energy Department of the European Commission, told trend.az that discussions on the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline project are underway.

Word of a possible military conflict brewing on the Caspian Sea between Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan, who have thus far failed to come to agreement regarding the ownership of the gas fields on the Caspian, has increasingly surfaced in Russian media, to which Turkmenistan’s Foreign Ministry has sharply responded, singling out reports published in Russia’s Regnum news agency. The Ministry characterized Regnum’s pronouncements on the state of relations between Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan in the Caspian Sea as “absolutely not true and that the cooperation between the two countries is based on the traditional ties of friendship and good neighborliness between the two fraternal peoples.” Regardless of the veracity of the conflict, it seems that Azerbaijan’s approach is pragmatic, with its Energy Minister, Natig Aliyev, issuing a statement that Azerbaijan would consider allowing Turkmen gas to transit through its territory once Turkmenistan reaches a decision on the construction of the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline: "Turkmenistan's position plays an important role in this project. If Turkmenistan considers the project important, and sees it as providing access to the Western market, Azerbaijan supports this idea. In turn, Azerbaijan will create all the conditions for the construction of the pipeline on its section."

President Berdymukhamedov severely reprimanded the Acting Minister in charge of the oil and gas sector, Kakageldi Abdyllayev, for “unsatisfactory performance of his duties” and for “shortcomings in his work.” The previous Minister of Oil and Gas, Bairamgeldy Nedirov, was fired in May for not obeying the Presidents orders and “damaging the country’s economy” after serving in this position only two years. The sector does seem to be prosperous, so such shuffling and reprimands perhaps belies internal struggles in the highest echelons of power as well as the resemblance of Berdymukhamedov’s management style to that of his predecessor, past dictator Saparmurat Niyazov.

Berdymukhamedov lashed out about insufficient progress in several other areas of Turkmenistan’s economy as well, targeting the cotton harvest (which is going too slowly), the modernization of the Turkmenbashi port and fleet (also going too slowly), and the employees of the Chinese company CNPC Chuanqing Drilling Engineering Co. Ltd. charged with developing the Galkynysh gas field (too slow). In a self-aggrandizing display of micro-management, Berdymukhamedov personally went to inspect the Galkynysh fields, the Turkmenbashi ports, and the new migration office, issuing “specific instructions” to the workers.

The migration agency increasingly violates Turkmen citizens’ rights to freedom of movement. According to some reports, over the past nine months, the number of Turkmen citizens deported from abroad has more than doubled, and Turkmen migration services are topping up their “black lists” of people who cannot leave the country by adding to them those who have been deported.

Closing off the hermetic country to the external scrutiny of those few foreigners who ever managed to get into the country for some period of time, with the Peace Corps program recently shuttered, Turkmenistan has also closed the popular English language program «Hello America!» supported by the US Embassy, staffed mainly by American teachers, and has been running in Ashgabat for five years.