This month, at the 68th session of the UN General Assembly in New York, Turkmenistan took the opportunity to assert itself in world affairs, sending a delegation headed by Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov and calling for an expanded United Nations role in the world, and proposing that the remote country host five international meetings next year – on disarmament, energy security, cooperative transport and transit corridors for landlocked countries, desertification, and refugees. “It is precisely the United Nations that is the main and universal international organization which adopts decisions concerning the most important issues of global development and comprehensive peace and security,” Meredov said before the UN.
On the sidelines of the General Assembly, Meredov met with Iran's Foreign Minister Javad Zarif to discuss cooperation in the transport and energy sectors, telling Iranian journalists that, “the security of Turkmenistan is the security of Iran.” Nonetheless, Turkmenistan just recently stepped up relations with Israel, only three months ago accepting the credentials of its Ambassador Shemi Tzur , making Turkmenistan the second country (after Azerbaijan) bordering Iran to host an Israeli Embassy. Some analysts have noted Iran’s determination to limit Israeli involvement in the Caspian region, and that Turkmen-Israeli relations may benefit Turkmenistan in the longer term as leverage in the occasional disputes over the price of gas, or potential disputes over maritime borders in the Caspian.
This week saw a flurry of OSCE-organized workshops and trainings on international human rights standards for Turkmen officials, including one for prison staff on prisoners’ rights, and for law students on criminal proceedings. Nonetheless, despite OSCE’s efforts and overtures in Turkmenistan, its government continues to refuse access to civil society organizations to the OSCE Permanent Council meetings, which took place last week in Vienna. Ambassador Silagberdy Murberdyev, who headed Turkmenistan’s delegation, had filed a protest against the participation of Turkmen civil society organizations at the OSCE Annual Human Rights Conference that took place on September 23 in Warsaw, labeling the independent civic voices that sought to participate as “wanted criminals and terrorists.” His protest was largely ignored by the members of the OSCE Permanent Council and members of Turkmenistan's Republican Party, the public movement «Vatan», the Civic Democratic Union, the Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights, Turkmenistan's Helsinki Human Rights Foundation, and Gundogar.org took part at the conference alongside governmental and civil society representatives from the OSCE’s 57 participating States and partner countries; the official Turkmen government representatives, however, refused to attend.
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