Turkmenistan News Brief

Goodbye, “Era of Rebirth.” Since President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov’s crushing election victory earlier this month, Turkmenistan is now entering the “Era of Supreme Happiness of the Stable State.”

Life is good, reports state media.

The president’s uplifting mantra heralds “a new stage in the development of the country,” AFP cites the government Neutral Turkmenistan daily as reporting.

The slogan is a "call for our future achievements and great deeds," [the paper] added.

Berdymukhamedov was sworn in for a second term on February 17 after winning over 97 percent of the vote in elections in which his seven rival candidates appeared only too happy to let him win.

Turkmenistan is fond of giving names to periods in its post-Soviet history -- the rule of Berdymukhamedov's eccentric predecessor Saparmurat Niyazov is now known as the "golden age of the Turkmen.”

Berdymukhamedov's first term in office after Niyazov's death was known as the "era of rebirth" as he dismantled the most outrageous excesses of his predecessor, who built a revolving golden statue of himself in the capital.

The Soviets were perhaps a little smarter with their sloagans, keeping the ideal (Communist utopia) just beyond reach. Turkmen officials may struggle to come up with something better than “supreme happiness” next time Berdymukhamedov is reelected.

Russia has reportedly convinced its allies in the Collective Security Treaty Organization not to participate in a new U.S. counterdrug program in Central Asia, apparently concerned that it would give the U.S. too much leverage over the regional governments. The program, called the Central Asia Counternarcotics Initiative, would promote regional cooperation in countering drug trafficking by setting up task forces in all five Central Asian countries and hooking them up with similar task forces in Afghanistan and Russia.

But Russia has apparently taken a dim view of the proposal, reports the Russian newspaper Kommersant:

Moscow is convinced that the main objective of this initiative is strengthening the military and political presence in a region that Moscow regards as its area of ​​special interests. As a result, Russia has managed to persuade the CSTO members to not participate in it.

The key problem, according to Kommersant's sources:

As planned by the United States, the task forces must have very wide powers, and most importantly, full access to secret operational information supplied to law enforcement agencies and intelligence services of the Central Asian countries. Moscow feared that this would give the U.S. an opportunity to gather sensitive information and then use these data to blackmail the governments in the region.

RFE/RL spoke with American diplomats involved in the effort, who confirmed that it was blocked:

A U.S. official familiar with the matter confirmed that Washington's delegation was unable to reach a final agreement at the meeting but said the plan has not been rejected.

Still, the official described the outcome as "a big surprise."