Gen. James N. Mattis, Commander of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM), visited Turkmenistan January 11 to meet with Turkmen leaders. It was Gen. Mattis' first trip to Turkmenistan since assuming command last August at CENTOM, which oversees U.S. military activities in the Middle East and Central Asia.
The U.S. Embassy did not have any comment other than to report the visit, but the State News Agency of Turkmenistan (TDH) said Gen. Mattis met with President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov to discuss global security, drugs, organized crime, and terrorism -- the ambitious agenda TDH describes for every visiting government or military dignitary. Gen. Mattis was portrayed by TDH as merely saying that the U.S. hopes to develop "versatile collaboration" with Turkmenistan which it views as "a dependable partner."
Reporting by EurasiaNet in the last year, however, has revealed that the U.S. has rather involved relations with Turkmenistan. As EurasiaNet’s Central Asian correspondent Deirdre Tynan has found [8], despite its avowed neutrality, Turkmenistan has assisted the U.S. in enabling transport of non-military goods through Turkmen territory to supply NATO troops in Afghanistan. At first, as Tynan discovered, [9], the U.S. paid for this transit, despite U.S. military rules prohibiting such payments, then apologized. Later, it developed that the U.S. government and its contractors were not paying taxes on fuel intended for military use in either Turkmenistan or Azerbaijan. Fuel is exempt from excise taxes for participants in NATO's Partnership for Peace program, as the Pentagon explained – which deprives Turkmenistan’s coffers of a substantial sum, and opens up the question of whether the U.S. pays Ashgabat in other ways, such as refraining from criticism.
After obtaining a commitment from Azerbaijan to supply fuel for the Southern Gas Corridor, European Union leaders travelled to Ashgabat January 13 to pursue the same arrangement with Turkmenistan, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported. European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a joint declaration committing Baku to "substantial" long-term gas supplies to EU countries, thus delivering Caspian Sea gas to Turkey and Europe and bypassing Russia and Ukraine.
Ashgabat has not yet commented on the long-delayed Nabucco project, but the U.S. floated the notion this week that the Russian-backed South Stream and the EU-backed Nabucco may be ready for a merger, Nezavisimaya Gazeta reported, citing an interview with U.S. Ambassador David Thorne in the Italian newspaper La Stampa. The Italian energy company ENI has been promoting the concept as well. Yet Russian experts have called the plan "utopian," and Gazprom itself has said that filling Nabucco is Europe's problem, and the Russian gas giant will be focused on its own contractual obligations to fill South Stream. Any such merger is seen as advantageous to Europe, not Russia, and Gazprom would not have the incentive to join it unless there was considerably more consumption in Europe to drive up sales.
WikiLeaks continues to publish cables claimed to be taken from U.S. government servers, causing upheavals in Western governments. Aftenposten, Norway's largest newspaper, says another alleged cable that surfaced describes American concerns about the Turkmen government's obstructions [10] of the U.S. Embassy's efforts to deter the surveillance of Turkmen intelligence agencies. This is standard operating procedure in U.S. missions all over the world, but the U.S. Surveillance Detection Program (SDP), as it is known, was not previously publicized until now. The U.S. complained that they couldn't get the Turkmens to refrain from bugging such sites as the public affairs office and USAID locations in Ashgabat.
The SDP apparently had a component involving not just deterrence of the host government, but secret surveillance to prevent terrorist attacks that involved recruiting former Norwegian police -- news that sparked a political scandal in Norway and led to a meeting between Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre and Secretary Hillary Clinton December 7.
Back in Ashgabat, perhaps mindful of bugs, the Embassy stuck to safer fare, showing three films this month, including "Hotel for Dogs," to an audience of Turkmen children. Recently, President Berdymukhamedov gave very cautious clearance for his state film agency to obtain some approved foreign films abroad for Turkmen audiences, and TDH gave the American Embassy children’s film festival a positive review. The story line of "Hotel," involving two orphans who attempt to hide their stray dog at an abandoned hotel after their strict new guardians tell them pets are banned at their home, may have conveyed an unintended Aesopian message, however.
Two million Turkmen cell phone customers were still without service, three weeks after the Turkmen government's contract with Russia's MTS mobile company expired on December 21. Most people were taking the sudden loss of conversation and Internet access in stride in a country where many things don't work, and were hoping it would be restored by January 21.
Rumors continue to circulate that the Turkmen government doesn't just want more than the 20 percent cut of profits they already get, but is demanding 51 percent ownership of the lucrative mobile company outright. According to reporter Steve LeVine [11], MTS officials are taking Turkmenistan to international arbitration court over the failure to renew their contract, and also are complaining to Washington in the hope of putting pressure on Ashgabat. While MTS was not free of Turkmen security interference when it came to complying with demands to shut off dissidents' phones, it had faster connections and better service than the state-run company which has only about 300,000 customers.
In yet another incident underscoring the fragility of independent media in Turkmenistan, unidentified young men attacked the home in Ashgabat of Gurbansoltan Achilova [12], a civil society activist and stringer for Radio Azatlyk, the Turkmen Service for Radio Liberty/Radio Free Europe (RFE/RL), the Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights (TIHR) reported.
Achilova woke to find young men fleeing the scene had thrown rocks at her house and broken the windows. The correspondent has been under pressure for years, and follows a long line of RFE/RL reporters who have been detained, harassed, expelled, or jailed.