We offer our readers a second part to the review on Turkmenistan. In the first part titled Turkmenistan: Breakdown and personalities I. the theme was situation in that country after the collapse of a once united Soviet state and the format for the transit of power.

In the second article the focus will be on the current breakdown and relations with other states.

II. Current Scenarios and Foreign Policy

The reform of the state apparatus began immediately after Berdymukhammedov’s ascent to power on February 14, 2007. On June, 22, 2007, the International Fund of Samapmurat Niyazov was abolished. Several state management agencies were reformed for the purpose of gaining the presidential control over practically all the financial flows in the country. Thus, not only did Berdymukhammedov liberalize the state management system but also he continued consolidating all the decision-making mechanisms in his own hands. One of the clear examples how such mechanisms were used was the appearance of the State Agency on Management and Use of Hydrocarbon Resources (hereinafter referred to as Agency). It was created on March 12, 2007 by a special presidential order. Yagshygeldy Kakayev became the head of Agency on August 27, 2008.

Note that, on June 6, 1997, Niyazov created a “Special Authoritative Body for the Use of Hydrocarbon Resources” that had the exclusive power to negotiate, grant licenses, sign contracts, and control their implementation. At that, the “Body” did not have the authority to collect the money from the gas and oil sales abroad. The Turkmenneftegaz state corporation was in charge of that.

The “Authoritative Body” was abolished by Niyazov on September 2, 2005, some time after Vice-President Gurbanmuradov and another high-ranked state officials from the oil-gas sector (including the head of Turkmenneftegaz Ilyas Charyiev) had been convicted.

In 2008, the law on the hydrocarbon resources was amended. In 2011, additional amendments were made broadening Agency’s authorities. In particular, it became the only resource manager in Turkmenistan controlled exclusively by the president.

Based on a research of human rights advocates, Agency transferred only 20% of its sale returns to the state budget. The fate of the remaining 80% was completely non-transparent up until Agency’s abolishment on July 15, 2015. In 2008, they created Stabilization Fund that receives the hydrocarbon sale returns. However, there is no openly accessible information either on the amounts or on the way money is used.

In September, 2008, they changed the Constitution abolishing the Khalk Maslakhaty (People’s Council) as the highest representational body in Turkmenistan. The president, however, still retains the position of the head of the Presidential Council and the chairman of the Ministers Cabinet.

Berdymukhammedov still rigorously continues practicing the human-resources brouhaha that concerns both the sectoral and the regional management. As far as the latter is concerned, at a minimum, 60 top-managers of the regional, district, and city levels were fired in 2016 alone.

This “grand inquisition” is conducted by the chairman of the Highest Control Chamber Chary Galydzhov and Attorney-General Amanmurad Khallyiev. It would be wrong, however, to consider them the “closest circle” representatives. They are simply functionaries and can be changed for the new, sharper, “instruments”.

That had always been the usual practice in Turkmenistan. It is enough to recall the fate of Kurbanbibi Atadzhanova, the attorney-general under President Niyazov, who had neutralized all the “internal enemies”. In April, 2006, she was arrested and, in May, relieved of all her ranks and decorations. Later, she was sentenced to long terms of imprisonment.

When Berdymukhammedov became President and the former chief of Niyazov’s Presidential Security Service Redzhelov was convicted, Guygeldy Khozhaberdyiev was appointed the chief of agency thus soon becoming an influential person in Turkmenistan.

Soon after, however, he was fired due to the corruption scandal tied to his wife’s elite real estate fraud in Ashkhabad. Still, on October 5, 2015, he was appointed the Minister of National Security. He had worked in this capacity until March 2016 when he resigned due to health reasons. Colonel Dovrangeldy Bayramov, the former head of the State Customs Administration, became the new minister of National Security. Thus, we can see that the changes in the top-management of the law-enforcement agencies happen on an all too regular basis.

The constant changes in the top-management of the vice prime ministers and the sectoral ministers do not allow to determine who the people in Berdymukhammedov’s nearest circle are. The conversations with the emigrants who have left the country only recently help to discern some key figures.

Among the officials, they, first of all, name Rashid Meredov who was appointed Vise Prime Minister on February 18, 2007. He also remains the irreplaceable Minister of Foreign Affairs appointed on July 7, 2001 by President Niyazov. Many call him the second person in Turkmenistan. His relations with the president are, however, of an unstable nature.

This is what is curios. The emigrants say that Meredov is the only one in the Turkmen establishment who obeys all the Quran requirements during Ramadan with sincerity. By the Constitution, Turkmenistan is a civic state, therefore, his religiosity is very noticeable. There is even a popular saying nowadays – “If ISIS comes, no one doubts who the next president will be”.

Alexander Zhadan, the first deputy of the head of the Presidential Affairs Department, and Viktor Khramov, President’s Aide, are also considered influential. They both used to be a part of President Nyiazov’s circle and retained their position under the reign of the second president. Both are over 70, and demonized to such an extent that it is hard to distinguish between the truth and the myths as far as they are concerned. However, many former middle-rank officials who left Turkmenistan several years ago agree that these two are probably in charge of managing the communication channel with the Israeli authorities.

We should explain that, in Turkmenistan, the big business is intertwined with politics. The country is, in fact, politically isolated and under the constant pressure due to the human rights violations, the non-transparency of economy, the authoritative style of state management, etc. Turkmenistan’s connections with the political circles that lobby their interests and decrease the intensity of the criticism are established through the foreign companies that work in the country.

In this sense, such companies as the Israeli Merhav, the German Siemens and CLAAS, the US John Deere, the British Case, the French Thales, and the Turkish Chalyk Holting have showed themselves to advantage. In particular, Chalyk Holting is the unquestionable leader in that regard.

A Turkish businessmen Akhmet Chalyk was a part of Niyazov’s closest circle. He also personally “wooed” two vice prime ministers, Gurbanmuradov and Saparov. The latter was called the main lobbyist of the Turkish economic and political interests. It is also known that, in the beginning of the 2000s, Chalyk presented Gubanmuradov a villa in Miami as a gift.

There was a cooling off period in the relationships with Turkey in 2004-2009. During this time, many Turkish companies started to experience the pressure from the Turkmen regulatory authorities. Among the Central Asian countries, Turkmenistan was first to abolish Gülen schools. Later, however, the presence of the Turkish business in Turkmenistan had become more vertically-integrated. Calik Holding, the affiliated Gap Insaat construction company, and Polimeks construction company became the main Turkish partners that took the full responsibility for their subcontractors.

This “lobbying list” does not include the Russian companies that had a possibility to become a part of it but did not use it. For example, the Vozrozhdenie company associated with Valentina Matvienko that worked in Turkmenistan failed to establish the “political business” in the country. In the past years, the quality of their performance has been challenged. There had been instances when the materials delivered were of a lower quality than registered in the documents.

Berdymukhammedov is quite fond of the ARETI (former ITERA) company owner Makarov. The latter, however, is not among those closest to President Putin.

Turkmenistan remains interested in the solid direct investments from Russia, for example, in such complex a project as the reconstruction of the Matryiskaya power station. The Russian ESK Soyuz company had performed the exploratory digging before making a decision on its participation in the project. The result, however, is still not clear.

The Russia-Turkmenistan relations remain complex. In talking about it, it is important to understand the Turkmen way of thinking. The interviewed officials point at Azhkabad’s belief that Russia acts only in accordance with the commercial interests of the concrete persons in Putin’s nearest circle.

The Turkmens do not believe in any kind of the Eurasian economic integration thinking that its only purpose for the Russian business is to establish control over the most attractive assets in the partnering countries. The Russia-Belarus conflict only confirms the Turkmens’ suspicions. As for the conflict with Ukraine and the Crimean matter, not only the Turkmen authorities but also the country’s population in general sided with Russia at first. However, as the war in the Donbass continues, the attitude is starting to change not to Russia’s advantage.

The safety question is the other stumbling block in the Russian-Turkmen relations. Ashkhabad believes that Russia’s attempts to enforce the military cooperation (including those made through the CSTO) are based on the unverified information on what is happening at the Afghan-Turkmen border. In that regard, the Turkmen hold a grudge against the Kazakhs as well.

Ashkhabad believes that the US secret service is one of the sources of this informational noise. The US also wants to make Turkmenistan a part of its sphere of influence and gain access to the military airdromes. Thus, the US regularly offers Turkmenistan to participate in different military projects. The latter, however, tries to avoid it. Therefore, the Afghan threat horror stories regularly told by the Russian-language media only irritate the Turkmens who believe that, in this matter, the Russians, for whatever reason, are siding with the Americans.

The situation at the Afghan-Turkmen border really does remain a consistently complex one. However, the criminal activity there is more closely tied to the drug trafficking than to the Taliban or IS military threat.

The frequency of the inadequate (from the Turkmen point of view) Russian-media publications shows that Russia is interested in deteriorating its relations with Turkmenistan even further. Especially, it concerns the materials on the number of people killed at the Afghan-Turkmen border, the poor combat readiness of the Turkmen army, the border troops, the draft difficulties (they do exist but they are caused by the demographic cycle and nothing else).

At that, Turkmenistan keeps its eyes open in regard to the US politics in general and to broadening the cooperation with the US corporations as well. As far as the latter are concerned, the Turkmen employ the following tactics – accept all, refuse nobody, discuss prospects, do nothing.

The cooperation with the American companies is also harmed by the fact that they are not ready for large-scale direct investments. They are proposing to use their own equipment that is too expensive and too difficult to maintain. So, Turkmenistan’s needs are, to a large extent, satisfied by the barter part of its gas cooperation with Iran and China. The status-quo of the economic cooperation with the US is maintained by prolonging the contracts for the delivery and maintenance of the US agricultural equipment.

Note that, as far as foreign policy is concerned, Berdymukhammedov favors Germany. The Ministry of Health plays a special role in these relations.

Despite the difficulties in the Iranian-Turkmen gas cooperation due to the question of payments for the gas already delivired, the relations between the countries remain solid. The attempts of the US and Israel to drag Turkmenistan into the anti-Iranian campaign had not been successful. In fact, Turkmenistan had retreated from the cooperation with the US at the border. At the Turkmen-Iranian section, the border technical equipment is handled by the German company Rohde & Schwarz and, at the Turkmen-Afghan section, by the French firms Airbus and Thales.

One of our sources stated that, for Turkmenistan, maintaining the good relations with Iran will always be more important than accepting any offers from the US and Israel since they have a potential to harm the Turkmen-Iranian connections. This is particularly true considering the fact that a big Turkmen diaspora (not less than 2 million people) lives near the Iranian border.

As for China, there are no special difficulties yet in its relations with Turkmenistan although Ashkhabad understands the threat of a possible financial dependency. The Chinese are complex negotiators, as are the Iranians. They always try to gain some additional profit. Compromises, however, are also always possible.

The Chinese had originally gained access to the Amu Darya gas fields discovered in the USSR times. However, the level of sulfur and humidity there made its exploration economically irrational even in the Soviet planning conditions. Of course, these fields had not been in demands after the USSR disintegration.

With the help of “easy terms” loans, the China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) had built gas conversion facilities and gas purifying facilities, hydraulic power stations, compressor stations, etc. The investments digested by the Chinese themselves had been enormous. The Turkmens, however, had no real means of control over the matter. The shipments of the Turkmen gas to China started in 2009. Now there are three active Turkmenistan-China gas pipeline extensions. According to the media, it enables Turkmenistan to export up to 40 billion cubic meters a year.

After the 2009 accident at the Central Asia – Center pipeline, Berdymukhammedov, to spite Gazprom, included the Chinese companies into the explorative works on the new, very rich, Galkynysh field. Thus, he had managed to receive a new purpose loan from China that amounted to 3 billion USD. Starting from 2012, the China Petroleum Engineering company (CPE) has been performing the project work on the ground-level infrastructure development of part of the field. The infrastructure includes a gas processing plant, motor roads, a railroad, a workers’ settlement, a fire-safety station, a gas-safety service, etc.

Apart from that, the officially announced increase of the gas shipments to China (up to 65 billion cubic meters a year) demands building the new, fourth, extension of the pipeline (once again, with the help of the Chinese “easy terms” credits). Therefore, Turkmenistan has all the chances to get hooked on Chinese loans.

With the Chinese, there is also the intranational marriage problem. Based on some data, more than 3000 marriages have already been effected. The children born in these marriages are, by law, the citizens of Turkmenistan. They will soon grow up and claim their civic rights. And nobody knows now what these rights will be.

…Here are the first part of the review paper.

About the author

Andrey Medvedev is a Russian specialist in political science, the chief operating officer of the “TSPT PolitContact” autonomous non-commercial organization