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RUSSIA-TURKMENISTAN RELATIONS
ARTEM ULUNYAN,
Head of the Program of Balkan, Central Asian and Caucasian Studies of Institute of Universal History of Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow
There are three main issues in the context of the visit of Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov to Moscow. The first issue is economic cooperation between Russia and Turkmenistan. The main topic at the negotiations was the new pipelines building.
The second issue is military and technical cooperation. Turkmenistan is interested in development of this cooperation and would like to modernize its military equipment.
The third issue is political situation in Turkmenistan. Since former President of Turkmenistan Saparmurat Niyazov died, the situation in the country has been still unclear. The new authorities said that they would follow open policy, but, as a matter of fact, there are serious restrictions and "closeness" including the visa regime, established between Russia and Turkmenistan under Saparmurat Niyazov, that, by the way, is one of the obstacles to the development of Russia-Turkmenistan economic relations.
There is a problem with the people who were convicted on charges of preparation of a coup d’etat under Saparmurat Niyazov. This issue is still open, but Russia is unlikely to raise it. Currently, many countries are interested in buying the Turkmen energy resources and turn a blind eye to violation of human rights in the country.
However, if this subject is ignored, there is no speaking about Turkmenistan’s political development and democratic reforms. And without solving political problems it will be difficult to develop the economic relations and to make them stable.
As regards Turkmenistan’s positions in Central Asia, there are some peculiarities here. Two main rivals, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, competed for leadership in the region. Turkmenistan could not take part in that competition as an equal for many reasons including its neutral status.
Now Ashgabat seeks to take advantage of the economic recession strengthening its influence in the world and in the region, and it seeks to step up cooperation with its neighbors. The point is Turkmenistan is the only Central Asian state that is so rich in energy resources, thus having a serious trump card.
But there is another problem – water resources. The irony is that the poorest (in terms of economic development and availability of minerals) countries in Central Asia – Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan – possess the region’s water resources and Turkmenistan depends on them.
There is a question if the Central Asian countries can solve the problem of water shortage by themselves or only with the help of external mediators. The EU lays claim to this role. The European officials realize that the water consumption determines the social and political situation in the region and, hence, stability in the development of the energy sector and, over the long term, of the energy resources supplies to Europe.
Here Moscow’s interests are also infringed on, which were expressed during the visit of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to Uzbekistan on January, 2009. Moscow made it clear that it would not take part in the development of projects including the water ones, if all the Central Asian interested parties did not give their consent to them.
March 27, 2009
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