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26.07.07
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Open For Business
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By Paul Abelsky
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Turkmenistan’s New Leader Remains Cautious at Home, but Instigates Economic Thaw
Turkmenistan may be a long way from greater openness in its domestic politics, but the country’s leadership has embarked on a public offensive in recent months to bring an end to the isolation in which it found itself before last year’s death of President Saparmurat Niyazov, known as Turkmenbashi.
Despite the glacial pace of political reform, expanding economic ties with Russia, China, Belarus and the neighboring Central Asian countries, as well as a recent visit by a USAID delegation headed by Drew Luten, have raised the level of dialogue on economic matters. In another recent development, Turkmenistan was elected on Tuesday to one of the five rotating deputy chairs of the UN General Assembly.
The strategic importance of Turkmenistan’s natural gas reserves has continued to draw the attention of foreign powers. In July, on a state visit to Beijing, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov signed several major gas field development deals with China. A production sharing agreement between presidential State Agency for Supervising the Use of Oil and Gas Resources and the China National Petroleum Corporation focuses on the Bagtyyarlyk territory in Eastern Turkmenistan, whose reserves are expected to yield 1.7 trillion cu.m. of natural gas according to official estimates.
Recent weeks have also seen a succession of foreign visitors in Ashgabat, which included meetings with Belarus Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Kosinets and Tajikistan Minister of Energy and Trade Sherali Gulov. In the coming days, a delegation of Moscow government officials will pay a visit to their Turkmen counterparts to discuss business projects and cultural interchange, the first such consultations in many years. In addition, a trip is planned soon by Uzbekistan Foreign Minister Vladimir Norov.
John MacLeod, senior editor with the Institute for War and Peace Reporting in London, says the revamped economic policies make sense in light of the hefty social programs the Turkmen government has undertaken. “In some ways, it’s a continuation of Turkmenbashi’s line, but Berdymukhamedov has tried to take a more considered and transparent approach,” MacLeod said. “Inside it still remains a monolithic, self-supporting system that needs to sustain itself. The president needs to manage the political system and stay on top of things, because there is always a danger from the conservatives. Turkmenistan has recently lifted internal travel restrictions, improved access to information and launched infrastructure projects – real things that affect people’s daily lives.”
A roundtable discussion held in Moscow today concentrated on the broadening economic ties between Turkmenistan and Russia. The watershed in the relationship may have come in May with the preliminary agreement on a gas pipeline deal between the presidents of Russia, Turkmenistan, and Kazakhstan, which calls for carrying Turkmen natural gas along the Caspian coastline to Europe via Russia and Kazakhstan. But the roundtable’s participants left little doubt that Turkmenbashi’s passing in particular marked the end of an era characterized by tensions in bilateral contacts. Besides enabling Russia and Turkmenistan to pursue more ambitious joint projects within a broader regional framework, the less visible changes include an intensification of languishing socio-cultural and educational programs.
For Kamilzhan Kalandarov, member of the Public Chamber and a long-time advocate of closer Russian-Turkmen ties, “the good times are returning.” From the Russian point of view, he said, the expanding relationship with Turkmenistan is important to bolster its standing in Central Asia. “Russia finds itself in sharp economic competition with such powers as China, the United States, and Turkey, and it has to find its place in the region to defend Russian interests in Turkmenistan,” Kalandarov said.
Gazprom has always had a strong presence in Turkmenistan as one of the main importers of the country’s natural gas supplies. What has recently made the difference is the willingness on the part of Turkmen officials to reassess their relationship with neighboring states and to intensify the ongoing ventures. “For years, there has not been such a high volume of work with Turkmenistan as we are seeing now,” said Alexander Ternyuk of Gazprom’s marketing department, who oversees the company’s ties with the CIS. “The important thing is that the previous period was marked by a strictly bilateral interchange with Gazprom, something the company has pursued with all Central Asian countries. With the recent changes in Turkmenistan and the new initiatives involving Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, we think the ties have moved on to a qualitatively higher level which would have been unthinkable only a year ago.”
But the liberalization of Turkmenistan’s economic outlook is unlikely to be reflected in a more open political atmosphere inside the country. MacLeod says the opposition groups have been deprived of a base inside the country and have become increasingly marginalized, and maintaining a steady domestic rule would be important for the president’s other efforts. The participants of the roundtable in Moscow gingerly avoided commenting on the political climate in Turkmenistan, noting only that the leadership is more aware of instituting greater transparency and legal protections.
The thinking in Moscow is that capitalizing on the economic dimension of Turkmenistan’s energy-rich resources could reinforce the Russian position in Central Asia and boost its wider geopolitical standing. “Russian-Turkmen relations could help define the economic development of the Russian Federation,” said Duma Member Alexander Fedulov. “Furthering these ties could be one of the key factors in restoring Russia’s status as one of the major world powers.” |
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