Turkmenistan

Determined to go forward on the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov spoke with Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari this week, following his conversation with Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai last week and the signing of an agreement between Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to construct TAPI.

Turkmenistan, so key to the energy plans of so many, had long shown its readiness to break Russia's stranglehold on its gas and oil exports. But Ashgabat has offered few hints as to who it prefers as an alternative.

International news outlets were intrigued by an August 13th announcement by the Turkmen president at a government meeting indicating that Turkmenistan would review proposals for offshore drilling from the companies Chevron, TX Oil, Mubadala, and ConocoPhilips.

President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov and President Dmitry Medvedev spoke on the phone July 30, but as usual, little was said on either the Kremlin or Turkmen government websites about the reason for their call except that they "stressed the importance of implementing mutually beneficial projects." It's not clear where the Russian state company Gazprom's purchases from Turkmenistan stand.

Turkmen Vice Premier and Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov reported on his participation in the meetings of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Almaty and the international conference on Afghanistan in Kabul at a cabinet meeting this week, the State News Agency of Turkmenistan reported.

The United States has been quietly assisting Turkmenistan to strengthen its borders with Iran and Afghanistan with equipment and training, and continues to enjoy Turkmenistan’s cooperation in permitting Washington to ferry non-lethal supplies through Turkmen air space to NATO troops in Afghanistan.

For more than six years, the Pentagon paid fees to the Turkmen government for the use of the Central Asian nation’s airports. However, officials in Washington either won’t or can’t say just how much was paid to Ashgabat from 2002-2008. All that they will say is that such payments made to Turkmenistan were inadvertent.

In June, Ambassador Francois Zimeray, France's envoy for human rights, visited Ashgabat, met with Turkmen government officials, and said he saw a genuine desire by Turkmen authorities to improve the human rights situation, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty's (RFE/RL) Turkmen Service reported.

Turkmenistan hosted an international conference, held June 24 under the auspices of the OSCE, on disarmament in Central Asia and the Caspian Basin. While ethnic tension remaining high in nearby southern Kyrgyzstan following a bout of violence there, the discussion in Ashgabat of how to make Central Asia a zone free of weapons of mass destruction seemed strangely academic.

The United States launched an ambitious high-profile dialogue with Turkmenistan this past week in a bid to gain access to the Central Asian nation's vast hydrocarbon reserves and enlist Ashgabat’s cooperation in the war in Afghanistan. A delegation of top State Department officials led by U.S.