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Medvedev praises Turkmenistan for perking cooperation with Russia

2009-11-29T09:43:00.000-08:00

ZAVIDOVO, Tver Region, November 29 (Itar-Tass) - President Dmitry Medvedev accentuated stepped-up Russian-Turkmen partnership in some areas of cooperation.

“Our relations have perked up in many areas in the recent past, and the direct merit for this goes to the present Turkmen leadership,” Medvedev said, opening on Sunday the meeting with his Turkmen counterpart Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, now on a working visit to Russia.

Medvedev noted that despite the financial crisis, trade between the two countries is on the rise, which, according to the Russian leader, is to the benefit of the two nations.

“We intend, in future too, to develop in the same vein good-neighbourly and partnership relations in all spheres. I have in mind economic relations, deliveries of machinery and technology from Russia, trade in energy carriers, military and technical cooperation and, of course, the humanitarian sphere,” the Russian chief executive said.

Medvedev also congratulated the Turkmen president on the Kurban-Bairam (Eid al-Fitr) holiday. “It is celebrated both in Turkmenistan and in Russia,” the Russian president added.

In turn, the Turkmen president brought condolences to the Russian president on behalf of Turkmen people in connection with the disaster of the Nevsky Express train.

Turning to partnership between the two countries, he noted that economic cooperation had been developing very actively in the recent past. “Trade by the results of the first ten months (current year) hit 5.5 billion US dollars,” Berdymukhamedov stated.

The Turkmen president also pointed to active partnership between the two countries in the humanitarian sphere and good cooperation with Russian regions, including the Altai Territory and the Sverdlovsk Region.

Source:itar-tass.com

Turkmenistan has no foreign debt: Turkmen President

2009-11-29T09:39:00.001-08:00

Turkmenistan is among the countries which do not have the foreign state debt. On the contrary, some countries are in debt to us for supplied Turkmen natural gas," Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhammedow said. His speech was published by the Turkmen media.

According to its proven natural gas reserves Turkmenistan is among the four world countries having this fuel. According to the forecasts of the independent audit, the resources of only one field Southern Yoloten (eastern part of the country) is estimated to the amount of 14 trillion cubic meters of gas.

Russia and Iran have been the traditional markets for sale of Turkmen gas recently. China will join this list by late 2009. The projects covering India and Europe are being considered.

An article about the country's transition to the market economy was published in the newly updated edition of the Constitution. Berdimuhammedow said that national currency was denominated in time. The reserve fund has been established. It has not been used due to no necessity.

"The stable social-political situation, sustained growth of national economy, permanent national currency, a strong reserve base and a reliable legal system, which guarantees reliability of investments greatly contribute to attractiveness of the Turkmen market, " Turkmen President said.

The Turkmen leadership said that foreign partners operating in Turkmenistan are provided with tax, customs, visa, insurance and other benefits to stimulate the growth of investment activity. It creates favorable conditions for long-term investments and expansion of partnership.

Berdimuhammedow said that these facts confirm the published reports of experts of International Monetary Fund, World Bank, European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

The Turkmen President drew attention to the fact that representatives of the major international financial institutions forecast further steady progress of Turkmenistan, raising its rating "as a state which is the most attractive one for investments".

Source:trend.az

Turkmenistan celebrates Kurban Bayram

2009-11-29T09:38:00.000-08:00

Today, Turkmenistan is celebrating Kurban Bayram (Eid al-Adha) - the holy Muslim holiday of sacrifice. According to the presidential decree, 28, 29 and 30 November were declared national holidays in Turkmenistan. Under part three of Article 81 of the Labor Code of Turkmenistan, Sunday, 29 November, has been transferred to December 1. Thus, the people of Turkmenistan will rest for four consecutive days.

President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov has sent a festive message to the Turkmen people.

"We are celebrating Kurban Bayram as a national holiday because we associate it with the best aspirations of people. This is a holiday that consolidates the unbreakable unity of our society, unites people and strengthens their friendship, and fosters the sense of loyalty to independent Turkmenistan and its people in the younger generation, reads the message which was posted on the central pages of the print media of the country. Celebrating Kurban Bayram, we pay tribute to our past and spiritual values of our ancestors."

"On the eve of the blessed Kurban Bayram, pilgrimage to the holy places and historical and cultural monuments of the motherland was organized for the first time in the history of our country, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov noted. It was evidence that the state policy is based on the principles of humanism, that each of us is committed to the traditions of the ancestors and deeply respects them."

Sending the people of Turkmenistan his cordial congratulations, the President wished everyone good health, long and happy life.

In Turkmenistan Kurban Bayram is one of the most beloved folk festivals. It is celebrated nationwide in a special way. The first day begins with a solemn prayer service, which precedes the rite of sacrifice. In these days, people would wear fancy clothes and visit relatives, friends and neighbors, entertain themselves and give sadaqah. People greet each other with wishes "Gurbanlygyyz kabul bolsun!" (May Allah accept your offering!). And of course, the traditional high swing is an essential attribute of Kurban Bayram in Turkmenistan, According to popular belief, by swinging one can be cleansed of sins.

Source:turkmenistan.ru

China transports gas from Turkmenistan

2009-11-29T09:35:00.000-08:00

The China National Petroleum Corporation says a gas processing plant for the Turkmenistan Amu Darya project began producing natural gas on November 22nd. This means the start of transporting natural gas to northwest China through the Central Asia Pipeline which will be put into operation next month.

The CNPC says the project can supply China with five billion cubic meters of natural gas next year and that can be expanded to 13 billion cubic meters by 2011. The company says it will also purchase 17 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year from Turkmenistan in the next 30 years to make full use of the Central Asia Pipeline. Sources say the pipeline is expected to ease a gas shortage due to cold weather in China.

Source:cctv.com

EBRD supports one of the first modern food retail chains in Turkmenistan

2009-11-29T09:33:00.000-08:00

Established in 2008, the locally-owned Ak Enar is the first retail chain in Turkmenistan, currently operating in Ashgabad. The food retail sector in the country is still dominated by small groceries and open market sales.

The EBRD investment will finance further expansion of the Ak Enar’s network, helping the company to grow its retail chain across Turkmenistan.

According to EBRD, the project will support Ak Enar’s strategy to develop a chain of stores located close to residential areas, bringing the modern retail experience to customers in Turkmenistan and providing a wide range of quality products at competitive prices.

“This project will set new and improved standards in the food retail sector in Turkmenistan, increasing the competition to the benefit of consumers. By opening new stores, Ak Enar will strengthen its linkages with local suppliers and will create new job opportunities”, said Neil McKain, Head of the EBRD office in Turkmenistan.

“This transaction reinforces the EBRD’s commitment to support the development of the private sector in Turkmenistan, which is one of the key priorities for the government,” added Mr. McKain.

“Having the EBRD as our partner will allow Ak Enar to expand and to develop into the country’s one of the leading retailers. We will set the standards for this rapidly growing sector.” said Akbabek Taganova, the owner of Ak Enar.

The equity investment is provided to Ek Anar under the EBRD’s Direct Investment Facility, a vehicle used to stimulate market activity by using a streamlined approach to financing smaller projects, mobilising more investment, and encouraging economic reform.

In addition, the EBRD is helping to improve Ek Anar’s retail management through the Bank’s TurnAround Management Programme, aimed at assisting private enterprises to adapt to the demands of a market economy.

Since the beginning of its operations in Turkmenistan the EBRD has invested €106 million in the country’s corporate, energy, infrastructure and financial sectors, mobilising additional investments worth close to €390 million.

To date the EBRD has invested more than €5 billion in over 330 agribusiness projects across central and eastern Europe and the Commonwealth

Source:finchannel.com

Turkmenistan seen as top gas supplier for Nabucco

2009-11-29T09:30:00.000-08:00

Energy-rich Turkmenistan could become a top supplier to fill a Western-backed natural gas pipeline aimed at reducing Europe's dependency on Russian gas, a top executive on the project said Thursday.
The planned ⁈llion ($11.7 billion) Nabucco pipeline would run 3,300 kilometers from to Turkey through Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and end in Austria, circumventing Russia.

"We hope and expect Turkmenistan to be one of the main suppliers of gas to various markets through Nabucco," consortium Vice President Johann Gallistl told an investors conference in the Turkmen capital, Ashgabat.

The remarks highlighted the crucial role that Western politicians and energy executives see the isolated Central Asian nation playing in ensuring European energy supplies over the coming decades.

Europe gets about 20 percent of its gas from Russia. A shutdown in January of Russian gas supplies to the European Union amid Moscow's price disputes with Ukraine has encouraged the EU to search for alternate routes.

Nabucco could be hindered, however, by territorial disputes over the Caspian Sea, which separates Turkmenistan from the pipelines that would feed into Nabucco.

Construction of a trans-Caspian pipeline could be indefinitely stalled by differences on how to divide the sea between five littoral nations, including Russia and Iran. Talks have dragged for years without an end in sight.

Gallistl said alternative options included moving gas through Iran, liquifying it, and then transporting it by sea. He also suggested it might be possible to deliver gas from offshore Turkmen fields to Azerbaijan, which lies across the Caspian from Turkmenistan.

Other potential suppliers for Nabucco could include Azerbaijan, Iran and Iraq, Gallistl said.

Turkmenistan is the largest gas producer in the former Soviet Union after Russia, which has had a lock on most of the reclusive desert nation's gas exports since the Soviet collapse in 1991. Turkmenistan estimates its total reserves at more than 20 trillion cubic meters (26 trillion cubic yards), but international experts have questioned that figure.

Source:etaiwannews.com

Iran, Turkmenistan could develop security cooperation

2009-11-29T09:24:00.000-08:00

TEHRAN – Iran and Turkmenistan could develop security cooperation and jointly run campaigns against drug trafficking and terrorism, Iran’s Majlis Speaker Ali Larijani suggested here on Saturday.

In a meeting with visiting Turkmen Parliament Speaker Akdzha Nurberdyeva, Larijani said regular talks between the two countries’ parliaments will help strengthen regional cooperation.

The parliamentary ties could also help speed up the implementation of the joint economic and industrial projects, he added.

Iran and Turkmenistan should take advantage of the great potential of their long water and land borders to expand their economic cooperation, he observed.

Elsewhere in his remarks, Larijani said the transfer of Iranian scientific-industrial knowledge to Turkmenistan particularly in oil and gas fields could help open a new chapter in industrial cooperation.

He also said that Tehran is ready to provide an easy access for Turkmenistan to sell its gas in the European markets.

For her part, Nurberdyeva said Turkmenistan prioritizes the expansion of brotherly ties with Iran in all areas.

She said parliamentary relations between the two nations will set the ground for the expansion of friendly cooperation.

Turkmenistan is ready to utilize Iran’s scientific and technological advances that could help enhance bilateral economic and industrial cooperation, the senior female lawmaker noted

Source:tehrantimes.com

East and West Scramble for Turkmenistan's Riches

2009-11-29T09:19:00.000-08:00

At the crossroads between east and west in the desert nation of Turkmenistan, a quiet battle is under way for natural gas, oil and influence, and the U.S. and Europe are losing out to China and the Muslim world. There's a lot at stake: the Central Asian country has the world's fourth-largest reserves of natural gas and substantial oil reserves, putting it in the same energy league as Saudi Arabia, Russia and Iraq. Plus, its position just north of Afghanistan could be hugely beneficial to NATO as it seeks more reliable supply routes to its troops on the ground there. But the West isn't being welcomed with open arms. "They just don't understand us," one businessman tells TIME in the capital, Ashgabat.

Turkmenistan is open for business like never before. After falling out with its close ally Russia earlier this year, the country has taken unprecedented steps to encourage foreign investment. Last month, the government hosted a landmark investment conference in Ashgabat, inviting hundreds of representatives from oil, gas and other companies to meet with government officials to discuss possible business ventures. It was also the first time in a decade that foreign journalists were permitted to travel freely in the country.
(See pictures of Russia celebrating Victory Day.)

All of this would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Turkmenistan became one of the most closed-off places in the world under the helm of Saparmurat Niyazov, who christened himself Turkmenbashi, leader of all Turkmen, and fostered a bizarre personality cult in the country. During his 16-year reign, he renamed the months after himself and his mother, required that all children read his philosophical tome Ruhnama and filled the country with impressive golden statues of himself. Economically, mostly Muslim Turkmenistan remained heavily dependent on its gas sales to Russia, its main source of income.

But the special relationship between Turkmenistan and Russia unraveled in April when a natural gas pipeline suddenly exploded. Earlier in the year, the price of gas in Europe dropped sharply, making it no longer profitable for Russia to buy fuel in Turkmenistan and resell it to Europe. Then, mysteriously, the pipeline that delivers gas from Turkmenistan to Russia blew up. Turkmen officials blamed Russia, claiming it had shut the valve on its end, causing pressure to build up and the pipeline to burst, in order to avoid honoring its gas contracts. Moscow strongly denied responsibility. The cost to Turkmenistan in lost gas revenues has been a staggering $1 billion per month.
(Read: "Europe Tries to Break Its Russian Gas Habit.")

For the rest of the world, the dispute presented a golden opportunity. The Middle East didn't waste time, stepping in with loans and development projects — or as one Western observer put it, "a rain of dollars." In June, the Islamic Development Bank — a lender in which Saudi Arabia, Libya and Iran hold the three largest stakes — agreed to build a railroad connecting Turkmenistan and Iran, the first direct rail link between the Islamic Republic and Central Asia. "As of today, our relations with the Islamic bank have really been activated," Tuvakmammed Japarov, the country's deputy prime minister for the economy, tells TIME. In December, he adds, Turkmenistan will meet with other Arab funding institutions "to discuss a range of other projects."

Iran has also stepped in to fill Russia's shoes as a natural gas middleman. A new gas pipeline connecting Iran and Turkmenistan is expected to open in December, nearly doubling the gas trade between the countries to 700 billion cubic feet a year. Because Iran already has one of the world's largest gas reserves, most of the imported Turkmen gas would be resold for profit. Not to be outdone, China signed a 30-year deal with Turkmenistan in June to buy up to 1.1 trillion cubic feet of Turkmen gas annually, starting in 2011. Work is expected to be completed on a 4,300-mile-long pipeline connecting Turkmenistan and western China in December.
("How Badly Would Sanctions on Gas Imports Hurt Iran?")

Meanwhile, the West finds itself standing on the sidelines. Since 2002, U.S. officials have tried to secure the right to truck food and other supplies from Europe to its troops in Afghanistan via Russia and Turkmenistan, but have been consistently rebuffed. The U.S. has only been given permission to fly humanitarian supplies through Turkmen airspace — but no military hardware. Earlier this year, Gen. David Petreaus, chief of the U.S. Central Command, met with Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, who became Turkmenistan's new President when Niyazov died in 2006, but was unable to persuade him to open his country even a crack to the U.S. military.

Europe has also had its eyes on Turkmenistan's gas as a way of lessening its dependence on Russian fuel. But a plan by several European countries to build a natural gas pipeline through southeastern Europe and Turkey has been delayed for years by wrangling over financing and the route. The Nabucco pipeline, as it's known, will eventually link up with another planned pipeline connecting Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan beneath the Caspian Sea. But, at the current pace, construction may not be completed for years.
(Read: "Why Europe Can't Abandon Russian Gas.")

The West has other problems to contend with, too. At the October investment conference in Ashgabat, several businessmen said a major obstacle was the fact the Turkmen have little time for Western values of democracy and free-market economics. Berdymukhamedov's regime is one of the most dictatorial in the world, keeping tight reins on the media and political opposition and allowing only the barest beginnings of private enterprise. "The reaction to our proposals is always, 'Thanks but no thanks,'" says one Western diplomat, who requested anonymity for fear of hurting his operations in the country. "It comes down to trust, and this is not a society that is used to having discussions around a table." Another Western official compares Turkmenistan to tightly controlled, oil-rich Kuwait. "They don't need our money, and they don't want us meddling here," the official says.

But given how much natural gas and oil Turkmenistan has under its desert sands, the U.S. and Europe look determined to keep trying to get a foot in the door. Just how they can achieve this in a crowded marketplace — and without a warmer welcome from the wary Turkmen — remains to be seen.

Source:www.time.com

Turkmen Pilgrims Make A Homegrown Hajj

2009-11-29T09:14:00.000-08:00

The hajj is just getting under way in Mecca, but for Turkmen pilgrims, their country's homegrown version of one of the Five Pillars of Islam has been going on for weeks.

Fears of swine flu led the Turkmen government to ban its citizens from participating in this year's hajj, the annual Islamic pilgrimage to the holy cities of Mecca and Medina in Saudi Arabia that every able-bodied Muslim is required to make during his or her lifetime if able to afford it.

In its stead, according to the Turkmen state news agency, the Turkmen government answered calls by "elders and faithful" by launching the country's first official internal pilgrimage on the eve of the hajj.In Pictures: Turkmen Pilgrimage Sites

A resolution authorized by Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov paved the way for the inaugural pilgrimage, in which an official delegation of elders and pilgrims originally chosen to make the hajj will travel by plane, train, and automobile to 38 "holy" sites within Turkmenistan.

Many of the 38 sites chosen for the inaugural Turkmen pilgrimage, which began on November 11 and is set to finish on November 29, are indeed impressive and religiously significant, but a number of sites simply have little, if anything, to do with religion.

Local Landmarks

The Paraw Bibi mosque, which is among the sites and is located in the western Balkan Province, has long been visited by religious pilgrims.

The eastern city of Mary also has newer sites, such as this mosque opened earlier this year.The mosque stands on the site where Paraw Bibi is said to have disappeared forever into the mountains. According to legend, Paraw Bibi was a pious Muslim and for centuries she has been a patron saint of pregnant women and children.

"According to one of the legends, the local governor's daughter was named Paraw. When the enemy was about to conquer the fortress, she wanted to escape with her servants and one of these servants was a traitor and revealed where they were hiding," Turkmen writer Ashyrguly Bayri says.

"To prevent being captured she went to the mountains, and they say the mountains opened up and hid her inside."

Another site, the Kutlug-Temir minaret, is the tallest minaret in Central Asia and is located in the northern city of Urgench (formerly Gurganj), the ancient capital of the Khwarezmian Empire (1077-1231).

Thirty kilometers to the west of the Silk Route city of Merv (now called Mary) lies the Talkhatan Baba, a mosque built in the 11th century to commemorate Sufi saints.

Members of the delegation this week planted pine trees in a park near the grave of Talkhatan Baba (1020-1095), a saint who, the Turkmen news agency noted, "devoted his life to serve the God."

The Mausoleum of Sultan Sanjar, also located near Mary, is all that remains of a larger religious complex dating back to the 12th century. The mausoleum itself, however, is dedicated to Seljuk ruler Ahmad Sanjar, a political rather than a religious figure.

The ancient ruins of Nisa was the capital of the Parthian Empire (third century B.C. to third century A.D.). But the site, located a short drive from the Turkmen capital Ashgabat, was long past its glory by the time Islam made its way into Central Asia in the early 8th century.

'Why Spend All That Money?'

Considering the sites' sometimes questionable relation to religion, do the people of Turkmenistan accept local pilgrimage sites as an acceptable substitution for Mecca?

The answer is "yes" a woman who says she has made the hajj abroad tells RFE/RL's Turkmen Service.

"Inside this country we have famous places you can visit where great people are buried -- more than you can count," she says. "If in Saudi Arabia people go to Mecca, then here in our country we have the '360 site,'" where 360 defenders of northern Turkmenistan were killed by Mongol invaders.

Pilgrims making the hajj this year will take precautions against the flu.The woman adds that even pilgrims making the hajj express surprise that Turkmen would "spend all that money" and make the trip to Mecca when there is an abundance of pilgrimage sites in Turkmenistan.

"The [Turkmen] people who went to Mecca spent a lot of money and they didn't need to spend that so much, the [Turkmen] state doesn't need to spend so much money," she says. "It's better to make the pilgrimage inside the country. We could develop those sites and people from outside the country would come here to make pilgrimage."

The woman says that she and some family members traveled to Iran once to visit pilgrimage sites and found the Iranian sites to be crowded to the point where "one could not even take a step."

She concedes, however, that Iranian sites were more popular for pilgrims and added that the sites in Turkmenistan were certainly not "on the same level" as Mecca.

Saving The State Money

At times, the Turkmen pilgrimage appears intended to serve the government's interests in ways that go beyond its stated intention.

The Turkmen state news agency, for example, reported in announcing the government-led project that while "taking a pilgrimage to the holy places the faithful will see the grandiose changes that have taken place in the ancient Turkmen land in the epoch of New Revival.

"They will see and tell about them to their fellow villagers, neighbors, relatives and friends. New factories, roads and bridges, schools and hospitals, cultural centers, and stadiums -- all of these vivid symbols of the epoch of New Revival, a result of President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov's policy aimed at increasing the welfare of the Turkmen people."

Considering that the Turkmen state usually pays to send a group of pilgrims to Saudi Arabia, the internal pilgrimage could presumably improve the welfare of the state budget as well.

Every year at the end of Ramadan the Turkmen government pays for some 200 pilgrims to make the hajj, exactly the number of seats on one airplane. This year, those selected to go to Mecca will instead be participating in the Turkmen pilgrimage, keeping any money they spend inside the country.

Saudi Arabia gives every a country a quota for pilgrims wanting to make the hajj (1,000 people for every million of a country's Muslim population), and 200 to 300 of Turkmenistan's Muslims usually make the trip to Mecca using their own money.

This year, however, the fear of exposure to swine flu has led the government to advise citizens against paying their own way to circumvent the ban and traveling to Mecca.

According to an official at the Saudi Embassy in Turkmenistan who spoke to RFE/RL's Turkmen Service on condition of anonymity, it appears Turkmen Muslims are abiding by the government's wishes.

"This year we are very, very sad because our embassy has given visas only for foreigners living in Ashgabat -- Turkish, Iranian, and so on -- but no one from Turkmenistan," the official said.

Turkmen writer Amanmyrat Bugaev also laments the loss of an opportunity for Turkmen to make the hajj.

As wonderful as the pilgrimage sites in Turkmenistan may be, Bugaev says, they cannot replace the hajj, one of the Five Pillars of Islam that is incumbent on every Muslim.

"I believe in God, and greatly respect traditions of Islam and I cannot understand why the hajj is replaced with the pilgrimage to the holy and historical sites in the country," he says.

Source:rferl.org

Envoy Confirms President's Upcoming Visit to Turkmenistan

2009-11-29T09:10:00.001-08:00

TEHRAN (FNA)- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is slated to pay a visit to Ashgabat in the last 10 days of December, Tehran's envoy to Turkmenistan confirmed on Monday.

"Mahmoud Ahmadinejad will travel to Ashgabat in the first 10 days of Day (last 10 days of December) at the invitation of Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow in a bid to attend the inauguration ceremony of Iran-Turkmenistan second gas pipeline," Iranian Ambassador to the Central Asian state Mohammad Reza Forqani told FNA.

Forqani underlined that mutual visits by the two countries' officials will play a major role in the expansion of the bilateral relations in different economic fields, energy and transportation in particular.

The ambassador noted that Iran-Turkmenistan second gas pipeline will be put into operation by the end of 2009, adding that the new line will double the volume of Turkmen gas imports into Iran.

The Iranian envoy had earlier announced that the two countries had planned to build a new pipeline to transfer Turkmen gas to Iran.

"Given the closeness of Turkmenistan's gas resources to Iran's border, a new gas pipeline is to be constructed in near future for transferring Turkmen gas to Iran in addition to the existing Korpeje-Kurt Kui pipeline," Forqani told FNA in July.

The diplomat also noted that the gas companies of the two countries have agreed to export gas to Iran from a Turkmen gas field, other than Korpeje.

Turkmenistan has agreed to boost the volume of its natural gas exports to Iran to 14 billion cubic meters (bcm) from the current 8 bcm following the start of operation of the new gas pipeline between the two countries.

The new pipeline from the eastern Turkmen town of Dauletabad to Iran will have a capacity of 12.5 bcm of gas per year.

Turkmenistan has also undertaken to increase the quantity of its gas exports to Iran to 20 bcm in the future.

Source:farsnews.com

TURKMENISTAN: STUDENTS SLAPPED WITH FIVE-YEAR TRAVEL BAN

2009-11-29T09:08:00.001-08:00

Students prevented from studying at the American University of Central Asia (AUCA) in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, and later prohibited from traveling to the American University of Bulgaria, reportedly have been placed on a five-year travel blacklist, an opposition news site is reporting.

According to Chrono-tm.org, three male students attempted to leave Turkmenistan through the Farap border crossing on the Turkmen-Uzbek border. In preventing the trio from leaving Turkmenistan, border guards reportedly explained; "Once you’ve been included on this list, you can’t go anywhere for a minimum of 5-7 years. That’s the rule." [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Resentment at the apparently arbitrary ban on study at AUCA is growing among the students who aspire to study abroad, the report adds. "Obviously, I won’t have a higher education now, but I’ve already learned some lessons. Until there is real change in the political system, there will be a growing number of wrongfully accused people like me [staying at home]," Chrono-tm.org quoted a student as saying on November 12.

The study-abroad plans of as many as 1,500 Turkmen scholars were interrupted by changes instituted by the Turkmen government in July. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Ultimately, many study-abroad students were able to begin their studies outside of Turkmenistan. But officials refused to permit the bulk of those wishing to study at AUCA to depart. Ashgabat has provided no public explanation for its decision. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Source:eurasianet.org

Turkmenistan: Stranger in a very strange land

2009-11-29T09:03:00.000-08:00

Landing in Ashgabat, there's no sign telling you where you are. No "Welcome to Ashgabat", no "Ashgabat International Airport, Terminal One" or anything of the sort. Instead, atop the terminal building, there is simply an embossed shiny head; the profile of a middle-aged man in gold.

Turkmenistan has done its best to keep out journalists for the past decade, and has long been an unattainable dream for Moscow correspondents like myself. But due, it seemed, to some kind of administrative error, they had let a few of us in, ostensibly to cover a tedious-sounding Investment Forum, and here I was stepping off the plane into one of the world's most isolated and bizarre countries.

The gold head was the first sighting of a man that would follow me around for the whole time I spent in Ashgabat. He was Saparmurat Niyazov, the local Communist party boss who had taken over as president when the country gained independence from the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, and created a personality cult unrivalled anywhere else in the world, except perhaps for North Korea. He decided he wasn't going to be boring old Mr Niyazov, he would be Turkmenbashi – Leader of all the Turkmens. He was Saparmurat Turkmenbashi the Great; he was the All-powerful and Fearless Serdar; he was the Eternal Sun of Turkmenistan and the Great Architect of the Golden Age of the Turkmens; he was the Father, the Prophet, and the President for Life. Since December 2006, he was also dead. But nevertheless, he was very much still here.

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A scruffy, miserably inhospitable patch of desert with nothing much going for it, Turkmenistan is watched closely by the rest of the world due to the vast reserves of gas – the fourth largest in the world – that lie under its arid sands and off its Caspian coast. With the cash that flooded into the country as the gas flowed out, Turkmenbashi built possibly the oddest city in the world.

Ashgabat is not simply bizarre. It's world-class nuts; Olympic-Gold-level bananas; truly and utterly bonkers. For years it provided pithy news stories written from Moscow or London (it was rare for anyone to gain access to check for themselves). Turkmenbashi renamed the days of the week and the months of the year after himself and his mother. He banned opera, ballet and the circus, but opened a giant theme park based on Turkmen fairy tales. He made his book, the Ruhnama, compulsory reading for all schoolchildren, and everyone needs to sit an exam on it to get a driving licence.

On a first walkabout, the city more than lived up to its bizarro billing. Turkmens are an eye-catching bunch, especially the women. They wear ankle-length dresses made of silk or velvet, which come in a whole host of bright purples, oranges, blues and greens; the necks adorned with intricate gold-thread embroidery that comes down in a sweeping column from the throat to the navel. Any gathering of Turkmens turns even the most mundane setting into a kaleidoscopic whirl of colour and excitement.

But none of them were here. Nobody. Over in the old part of town, the bit they don't want foreigners to see, locals live in a normal, shabby Soviet city, many neighbourhoods of which were simply bulldozed down to make way for the new city. This ever-expanding new section consists solely of huge white marble buildings, set along broad avenues completely bereft of people, save the armies of cleaners who keep them so spotless you could eat your dinner off them. As few people can afford the new apartments, most of them are empty. I felt as though I was an extra in an apocalyptic disaster movie, walking along these long, wide avenues framed with shimmering new buildings but with hardly a soul in sight. Here in the very heart of Central Asia, that romantic region of teeming bazaars, mysterious alleyways and ancient mosques, is a brand-new city full of sterile white-marble high-rises and glimmering gold statues of the man who ordered them built.

At its centre is (of course) Turkmenbashi Square. On three sides are vast palaces; the too-new shine of their white marble facades marking them as recent creations. On the fourth and final side of the square is the city's crowning glory. Three wide white legs stretch down dozens of metres, straddling a roundabout; a giant tripod base on which is mounted a white, somewhat phallic structure in the shape of a space shuttle. And atop this, high in the air, a statue all in gold, of a middle-aged man with his arms outstretched above his head in a pose of religious ecstasy, like a maniacal preacher. Yes, it's Turkmenbashi, rotating throughout the day to always face the sun.

To make things more complicated, the country is now afflicted with a bipolar personality cult. When Turkmenbashi died in 2006, his former dentist, and then Minister of Health, the tough-to-pronounce Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, took over as the new leader. While the golden statues of Turkmenbashi remain, the more transient elements of his personality cult – portraits on buildings, banknotes, and so on – have been slowly removed, and Berdymukhammedov has instigated his own, creeping personality cult.

Younger than his predecessor, Berdymukhammedov's jet-black hair is swept back over a pudgy face in the same way as the great Turkmenbashi, but with a more sinister effect – he looks like a slightly vampiric librarian in the giant posters that adorn almost every building in the city. When he came to power, there was much talk of liberalisation, but in Turkmenistan, everything is relative. Previously, nobody except a select few government officials was allowed to use the internet. Now, there are four internet cafes in Ashgabat, but there are only five computers in each, the connection is medievally slow, and surfers have a double reminder that Big Brother is watching – not only does a portrait of Berdymukhammedov stare down from the walls, but in the one I visited an officious young man with slicked back hair took note of everyone's name and passport number before they were allowed online.

Berdymukhammedov has also carried on Turkmenbashi's penchant for vanity mega-projects. His big idea is the construction of one of the world's best tourist resorts at a cost of billions of dollars at Avaza on the Caspian Sea. No matter that the water is too cold to swim in most of the year, the beach is covered in sea snakes, and it's almost impossible for anyone to get a visa and visit the new paradise. The order was given to build a giant resort, so a giant resort is being built. Nobody questions the president. The television news follows his every move, and he's followed everywhere by hordes of clapping, grinning schoolchildren. Recent televised stunts have included driving across the desert country in a race against two professional racing drivers (no prizes for guessing who won), and the inauguration of a new cancer centre. Berdymukhammedov, a dentist by training, performed complex surgery to remove a tumour from a patient, although informed sources told me that he simply wielded a scalpel and grinned for the cameras, while the real work was done by two German surgeons who had been specially flown in.

The Investment Forum was held in a vast white hall with delegates seated around dining tables laden with fruits, nuts and drinks, and was meant to be opened by the Big Man himself, but he pulled out at the last minute, leaving everyone to make do with the enormous portrait of him that was hung above the podium. (Though he was unable to find 15 minutes to talk to the biggest-ever gathering of international investors to descend on his country, Berdymukhammedov did, however, find time to spend several hours ceremonially opening a chicken farm the next day.)

The Turkmen officials at the forum spoke in a tedious monotone, droning imaginary statistics and making obligatory references to the "marvellous initiatives of respected president" roughly every 30 seconds.

I cornered the deputy health minister at the end of one session to ask if the country had a problem with HIV. She shot me a look of worried suspicion, and said: "We are building a big new HIV prevention clinic. But luckily so far we don't have a single case." This in a country that borders Afghanistan and its heroin supplies, where prostitution is widespread, and where all the other countries in the region admit to a serious HIV problem. She later suggested it would "perhaps be better if you didn't write an article about this".

"People don't solve problems here," a foreign resident of Ashgabat told me. "They simply deny them."

Not that this seemed an issue for companies looking to invest in the country. Speech after speech of praise from Western companies drew smug smiles and nods of approval from the Turkmen officials listening through their translation headsets. The parade of foreigners telling them in obsequious language how wise and talented their president is was reminiscent of emissaries sent to the courts of ancient Khans to win trading concessions with gifts and beautiful words, and hardly seemed like the best way to drag the country out of its self-imposed isolation.

"Zis Prezident it trruly an innovator," chirped one overexcited German from the podium, urging delegates to invest in the gold-plated haven of Turkmenistan. A Brit, representing the EBRD, spoke of the country's wise political course. Nobody deemed it fit to remark that we were in one of the weirdest and most autocratic countries in the world. And of course, few of the companies actually wanted to make-long term investments in such an opaque country.

"Most people here are vendors, not investors," one delegate confessed quietly on the sidelines of the forum. They're happy to build any palace or five-star hotel that the Turkmens ask them to. But actually invest long-term and expose their money to risk? Not a chance.

I escaped from the conference and got chatting to a group of young Turkmens sitting in a café. They were well dressed and tapping on i-Phones, and it transpired they all worked in international companies in Ashgabat – they were some of the lucky few who had been allowed to study abroad for a year, and had picked up English in the US.

"I learnt more in six months in the US than I did for four years at the best faculty of the best university in Turkmenistan, where I learned absolutely nothing," one of them told me.

"All the really talented professors were fired in the Nineties and replaced with idiots who were happy just to talk about Turkmenbashi and the Ruhnama," he continued, talking quietly so as not to attract too much attention. "Everything was destroyed under the old president. Everything. I'm patriotic, I love my country and I want to stay here. I could've got citizenship in the States if I'd tried hard enough, but I wanted to come back here. But if things don't improve in the next decade, people like me will start to leave. I want my kids to have a decent education, and right now, that's impossible here."

While there might not be brutality on as widespread a scale as in neighbouring Uzbekistan, this is only because Turkmens on the whole appear to have accepted their lot, and know not to talk out of turn. This is partly due to the most spectacular dumbing down of society. No books are printed except the Ruhnama – Turkmenbashi's turgid ramblings on life, morals and Turkmen history – and Berdymukhammedov's tomes. Despite being in office less than three years, he's already managed to knock out a book on cooking, one on horses and one on herbal medicine, and the TV news features nothing but Berdymukhammedov and dancing children.

To test out just how isolated the place really was, I played a game on a Friday night out at one of Ashgabat's few nightclubs. I asked 10 different people, all young well-to-do types in their twenties, if they could name the current US President. Seven of them expressed total bemusement, one guessed "Bush", and one of the bartenders disappeared to phone a "friend who knows everything", and returned a few minutes later proudly brandishing a piece of paper on which was written in neat Cyrillic letters, "Vagassa Avama". Only one, a shy young ethnic Russian girl, guessed Obama, but then collapsed in a fit of giggles and said she was sure she must be wrong.

***

While the personality cults of both Berdymukhammedov and Turkmenbashi were on display at every street corner, it was only when I arrived in Gipjak, the village about 15 miles outside Ashgabat where Saparmurat Niyazov had been born in 1940, that the utterly outrageous extravagance of his cult really became clear. This was where the Turkmenbashi Mosque had been built.

The shiny white marble and vast gold dome meant that, like all the new buildings in Turkmenistan, it was somewhat tacky, resembling what Hotel Mecca, Las Vegas, might look like if such a thing was ever built. But while it could hardly compete with the great mosques of Iran and the Middle East for elegance, its sheer size meant it was hard not to be impressed. Approaching the mosque from the road, I walked past over a hundred fountains bursting from lush green grass by the roadside, before entering a walkway surrounded on both sides by fountains and green Turkmen flags. The mosque itself was on a platform about four metres above the earth, and water cascaded down all the sides. The four soaring minarets were of white marble ringed with gold bands, and the mosque itself encased by a grand wall with marble columns and eight porticos.

Under the main gate of the mosque was not a quote from the Koran, but a long quote from the Ruhnama and the words "Turkmenbashi is Great".

Inside, around the base of the dome, blue-lettered slogans extolled both Allah and Saparmurat Turkmenbashi the Great. This was perhaps the crudest attempt to fuse the personality of a dictator with that of God in modern times. Turkmenbashi had got billions of dollars of Saudi aid after completing the hajj in the Nineties, and had promptly built a mosque with his own name scrawled all over it. Visible behind the mosque were the hazy Kopet Dag mountains, and behind them, Iran, just a couple of dozen miles away. I imagined that the penalties in Iran for writing one's own name inside a mosque were not pretty. Even the pictures of Ayatollahs Khomeini and Khameini, the leader of the Islamic Revolution and his successor, which are everywhere in Iran, are never to be found blasphemously adorning the outside or inside of a mosque, still less would their names be allowed to be inscribed on a mosque interior. I felt a bit sorry for Salman Rushdie and the Danish artist who drew the infamous Mohamed cartoons – surely Turkmenbashi, when he was still alive, was a far better candidate for a fatwa.

A guard told me the mosque could seat 20,000 worshippers, but when I returned for Friday prayers, 100 were there at most. The Turkmenbashi Mosque was only one of thousands of monuments that the odious man had dedicated to himself, but it stood out as perhaps the biggest and most obnoxious squandering of money of all.

It had some fairly stiff competition though. Back in Ashgabat, I took myself off one afternoon to a new museum and library complex that had been built just before Turkmenbashi's death. Another Vegas-style extravaganza, this featured three marble buildings with golden domes facing onto a courtyard, each with four enormous stone lions roaring from pedestals at the front. The streets around it were completely deserted, but as I approached the entrance, I saw two Turkmen guys get out of a car and walk up to the complex, taking pictures of the building on their mobile phones. I went over to say hello to them, and they expressed expletives of amazement at the fact that I was from England. We spoke in Russian, which most Turkmens speak along with their native, Turkic tongue, in a legacy of the Soviet period.

Murat and Ali turned out to be oil specialists from one of the regional capitals, in town visiting family. It was the first time they had been to Ashgabat for four years and they had all the marks of the wide-eyed provincial in the big city as they looked in awe at the imposing buildings around them. Ali was quiet and affable, while Murat wouldn't stop talking and had a rather unpleasant hectoring tone. He also turned out to be the first real Turkmenbashi enthusiast I'd come across.

"This complex was built by our first president, the great Saparmurat Niyazov – Turkmenbashi," he shouted unnecessarily loudly into my ear. "Have you heard of him?"

I refrained from the obvious response that it would have been fairly difficult to have been in Turkmenistan for more than two minutes and not have heard of him, and went for the non-confrontational: "Yes, he seems to have built a lot."

"Not just built, Shaun. He also did a lot; he did so much for the Turkmen people."

The first floor of the cavernous museum was devoted to gifts that had been given to Turkmenbashi – malachite vases, elaborate timepieces of solid gold, crystal dining sets, enormous carpets. Murat would call me over every now and then to bellow about a particularly lavish gift, peppering his speech with the Russian expletive pizdets, a vulgar expression of surprise derived from the word for the female genitalia.

"Pizdets, this thing is solid crystal! Can you believe it? Solid! That's how great he was, pizdets! Can you imagine? They gave him something of solid pizdets crystal!"

Who exactly the "they" was for the most part remained a mystery. Most of the exhibits had a label explaining what it was but not designating the giver, which led me to wonder whether he hadn't given most of them to himself. Especially suspicious were several carpets woven with verses from the Ruhnama and the Turkmen national anthem (first line: "Turkmenbashi made Turkmenistan great").

Afterwards I went for a beer with Ali and Murat. The talk moved to the inevitable subject of money. They asked me how much was the lowest that a skilled worker could expect to be paid per month in England. I said about £1,000, to keep it on the low side, and reminded them that they had to remember that taxes were higher in England and so were prices. They looked at each other in amazement. Then they asked how much rent I paid per month for my apartment in Moscow. I halved the amount and they were still gobsmacked. They told me that they earned about £100 per month. This for the employees of a state oil company with higher education and 15 years of specialist experience. Even though utilities were free and prices in general were low in Turkmenistan, it was still a shockingly low amount of money. Ali spent his weekends working as a carpenter to make ends meet.

"With that money I have to buy food and clothes for my wife and two kids," said Murat. "It's terrible how we live. We have no money." There was of course a giant elephant storming around the café that I couldn't help but mention. "Murat," I began, as tactfully as I possibly could. "What good are all these monuments and fountains, that the government has spent billions of dollars on, if hard-working people like you don't have enough money to put food on the table for their family?"

Murat paused for a while. Then he said: "As Saparmurat Turkmenbashi said, 'He who works hard will have his rewards.'"

It was unclear whether these rewards would come in a few years, or in the afterlife, but it was fairly obvious they weren't here yet. I didn't think it was worth probing this logical crevice any further. Not for the only time in Turkmenistan, I was left wondering if someone had been fully taken in by the years of propaganda they'd been subjected to, or if they were well aware how messed up the situation was but were trying to persuade me – or themselves – that Turkmenbashi really had been a wise and just leader.

***

I'm at the departure lounge of the airport, waiting for my less-than-convenient 4.50am flight back to Istanbul. Two of the handful of destinations that Turkmenistan Airlines flies to turned out to be Birmingham and Amritsar, and the small, shabby departure area was crammed with around 200 exhausted Sikhs with Midlands accents waiting for their connecting flight. It's almost impossible to book tickets on Turkmenistan Airlines – they have no website and aren't bookable at online sites like Expedia. But a few Birmingham travel agents had apparently got hold of tickets and were selling the Birmingham-Amritsar via Ashgabat route at knock-down prices.

I asked a few of them if they'd ever heard of Turkmenbashi or knew anything about the country. "To be honest I'd never even heard of it until we got the tickets. I've got no idea where we are. Are we somewhere near Russia?" one of them asked me in a heavy Birmingham accent. I started telling them about Turkmenbashi, the Ruhnama, the statues, and so on, but they didn't seem to believe me.

Giving an impromptu 4am lecture on Turkmenbashi's political thought to a group of Brummies in turbans was not how I expected to end my time in Turkmenistan. But on balance, it was an appropriately surreal way to end my stay in the world's most bizarre country.

A nation in numbers: Turkmenistan revealed

* Turkmenistan occupies 188,456 square miles, an area slightly larger than California.

* Major languages are Turkmen (spoken by 79 per cent of the population) and Russian (12 per cent). Nine per cent speak Uzbek.

* Religion: 89 per cent are Muslim.

* Main exports are oil, gas, textiles and raw cotton.

* Life expectancy for men is 59 years, 68 for women.

* Infant mortality rate is 45.36 deaths per 1,000 live births.

* Annexed by Russia between 1865 and 1885, the country became a Soviet republic in 1924, called the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic.

* Gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

* Large reserves of natural gas, produce roughly 70 billion cubic metres each year, but it has suffered from a lack of adequate export routes. The economy remains undeveloped and much of the population still lives in poverty.

* The average wage is £120 to £220 a month.

* The gross domestic product for 2008 was estimated at $30.332 billion.

* Currency is the Manat, which subdivides into 100 Tennesi. Previous president Saparmurat Niyazov appears on the 500 manat (£107) note, currently the highest denomination.

* Although official figures place unemployment at five per cent, international organisations estimate it is closer to 50 per cent.

Holly Williams

Source:independent.co.uk

TURKMENISTAN: WASHINGTON FINESSES STUDY-ABROAD CONTROVERSY

2009-11-29T09:00:00.000-08:00

Prominent human rights advocates want the United States to consider invoking the Jackson-Vanik amendment against Turkmenistan over Ashgabat’s refusal to let hundreds of young scholars leave the country to pursue their studies.

Rules changes imposed by the Turkmen government this past summer disrupted the plans of roughly 1,500 students to embark on study-abroad programs during the fall semester. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Hundreds of students, mainly those who sought to attend the American University of Central Asia in Bishkek, remain unable to leave the country. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

Rights groups and education specialists have urged US and EU officials to take a forceful stand against the Turkmen government’s study-abroad restrictions. But so far Washington has finessed the issue. Many regional experts believe that US officials are reluctant to do anything that could alienate Ashgabat, given Washington’s desire to secure Turkmen participation in Western-backed energy projects, including the proposed trans-Caspian and Nabucco pipelines. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].

The dilemma facing US diplomats was on full display in mid-November, when Ashgabat hosted a major energy exposition concurrently with a large education-related event. The energy conclave, the Turkmenistan International Oil and Gas Expo 2009, received lots of US diplomatic attention, with the American delegation being led by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State George Krol.

Meanwhile, US diplomats did their best to sidestep the study-abroad controversy during the November 16-20 education fair - dubbed International Education Week. In November 18 comments to EurasiaNet, William Stevens, a spokesman for the US embassy in Ashgabat, explained AUCA’s absence from the education fair in the following manner: "AUCA is not actively recruiting in Turkmenistan this year, so they didn’t ask to be included in International Education Week."

Speaking at a news conference in Ashgabat on November 17, Krol indicated that he raised the study-abroad issue during talks with Turkmenistan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, Rashid Meredov.

"They want to solve this issue. Let’s see how [they do it]," Krol said, adding that it would be "worthwhile" to continue discussions with President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov. It was not clear whether or not Krol actually raised the issue when he had an opportunity to talk with Berdymukhamedov.

The US Embassy has remained tight-lipped on the issue. "We raised the issue of the TASP [Turkmenistan AUCA Scholarship Program] students," Stevens said. TASP is funded by the US State Department through US embassy in Ashgabat.

Representatives of Human Rights Watch and other watchdog groups now seem intent on turning up the heat on Washington.

"The US government raised the issue several times with the Turkmen leadership, and made this known publicly, which are good steps. But it isn’t clear what consequences there might be for US-Turkmen relations if the Turkmen authorities don’t let the students travel," Rachel Denber, deputy director of the Europe and Central Asia division at Human Rights Watch, said on November 19.

Denber suggested that if the Washington was serious about pressing Turkmenistan on the study-abroad issue, it might consider raising the Jackson-Vanik amendment, a 1974 statute that allows for the imposition of economic punishments on states that do not permit freedom of movement.

"The only thing needed is the Turkmen authorities’ political will to let people exercise a fundamental right," Denber said. "This isn’t a complicated issue."

Editor's Note: Deirdre Tynan is a Bishkek-based journalist specializing in Central Asian affairs.

Source:eurasianet.org

Turkmenistan Twitter

2009-09-16T10:36:00.000-07:00

Turkmenistan (Turkmen: Türkmenistan; also known as Turkmenia, Russian: Туркмения) is a Turkic country in Central Asia. Until 1991, it was a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic (Turkmen SSR). It is bordered by Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the south and southwest, Uzbekistan to the east and northeast, Kazakhstan to the north and northwest, and the Caspian Sea to the west.

Turkmenistan's GDP growth rate of 11.5% (IMF estimate for 2007) ranks 11th in the world, but official government statistics on which this estimate is based are widely regarded as unreliable. Although it is wealthy in natural resources in certain areas, most of the country is covered by the Karakum (Black Sand) Desert.

Until recently it was a single-party system, that was considered to not meet even the most basic standards of democracy. Turkmenistan was ruled by President for Life Saparmurat Niyazov (called "Turkmenbashi", or "leader of the Turkmen") until his sudden death on 21 December 2006. Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow was elected the new president on 11 February 2007.