Shavkat Mirziyoyev has recently made an official visit to Ashkhabad. Thus, the discussion on what the new Uzbek president’s first official destination was going to be ended. However, the choice of Turkmenistan as the country of his first visit is not at all random.
Both Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan hold similar views on many questions. For example, the leaders of both states want to be independent politically, first of all, of the US and the collective West. At that, they wish to have beneficiary economic relations with the West, China, Russia, and Turkey.
Both have a common border with Afghanistan and need to coordinate their decisions on this matter including those on the CSTO help offers.
We must remember that, despite the complexity of the relationships between the countries’ former presidents, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan had been united in their approach to the CIS. They both had repeatedly underscored that they saw this organization strictly as a consulting agency that should not have any supranational power. Today, the new presidents are working out the coordinated position on their EEU approach.
Obviously, it would be easier for Shavkat Mirziyoyev to establish the desirable relationships with Kazakhstan and Russia having received the Turkmen president’s support on the disputable regional matters including the supposed rivalry with Kazakhstan in their fight for the title of the local leader.
Mirziyoyev’s visit to Ashkhabad was politically advantageous for Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov as well. He has recently been reelected and the electoral process was criticized by the West. So, Mirziyoyev’s official visit in fact have legitimized the election results.
Nowadays, Turkmenistan’s economy and foreign policy are in a tricky situation. There is an obvious pressure from the US to review the legislature in order to ensure the access of the American gas and oil giants to the rich on-shore deposits in Turkmenistan. And Rex Tillerson’s appointment as the secretary of state will only create new difficulties for the Turkmen authorities.
The Turkmen president opposes establishing tighter connections with the US. He is openly concerned about the US presence in the country keeping in mind, on the one hand, the revolutions in Kyrgyzstan, Georgia, and Ukraine and, on the other hand, the fate of some Middle Eastern countries that once were the US “strategic partners”.
Once, during President Niyazov’s rule (1990 – 2006), a Western firm lost a document containing a list of the high-rank Turkmen officials to whom it had found a “non-official approach”. In the document, these officials were identified as “beneficiaries”. This was enough for Niyazov to start reshuffling the state employees pool regularly not permitting them to become financially independent heavy-weight lobbyists.
Today, the system of power has not changed much. As before, any big contract with foreign companies must be approved by the president. The “dismissals and arrests” are almost as frequent as they had been during Niyazov’s time. Therefore, an appearance of those lobbying foreign interests at the highest levels of power is highly doubtful.
Berdymukhamedov is quite fond of Germany and Austria. For a large part, it is an achievement of the embassies and a result of Siemens’ clever lobbyist work. The latter, due to the health problems of the first Turkmen president, had managed to establish a “medical diplomacy” channel that had proven to be quite effective in the Turkmen setting. The second president has inherited this channel of influence. Although his health is a much better condition than that of his predecessor, the medical matters are quite resonant for him due to his “civic” profession.
Germany as the country of its own (and often different from the US’) interests, could play a role of a safety umbrella for Turkmenistan. This, however, has not happened yet because, first, Turkmenistan today is in a dire economic situation and the return on investments scheme is unclear to the Germans. Second, Ashkhabad also believes that the current German Chancellor is controlled by the US.
Turkmenistan is financially dependent on China while the economic cooperation with Iran has not been beneficiary for the country. The pipelines had been built on the borrowed resources and before the fields were prepared for them. At that, both Iranian and Chinese partners did not rush to buy enough gas to give Turkmenistan an opportunity to pay off the debts and start to make profit after the pipelines had been put into operation.
In both cases, Turkmenistan has not yet received enough money to ensure the relatively high (compared to the neighboring countries) quality of life of its people. Besides, it is no longer necessary for Tehran to receive the quantity of gas provided by the Korpeje-Kordkuy pipeline. Tehran also prefers to barter and not to pay actual money for the amount of gas it receives. But the matters are even worse with the Chinese. The size of the loans “digested” mostly by the Chinese companies tells us that Turkmenistan will remain in debt for a long time.
Its relations with Russia are now in a deadlock as well and no one knows how to crawl out of there. Once, the long-term interests of the Russian state in Turkmenistan were put under the care of the “sectoral feudal lords” of Gazprom whose concerns were limited by the calendar year only. Therefore, in this case, the formula “what is good for Gazprom is good for Russia” did not work.
Now Gazprom does not objectively need the Turkmen gas in high quantities (unless it is for free) and the Russian authorities are at a loss as to what to do with Turkmenistan. They do have the strategic interests there but it is unclear who can lobby them.
Turkmenistan has good relationship with the Turkish authorities. A Turkish businessmen Akhmet Chalyk plays a big part in maintaining it. However, the Turkish political support is not enough for the current Turkmen president especially keeping in mind the country’s troubled relations with the US as well as with Germany. Therefore, Mirziyoyev’s official visit to Ashkhabad has been to Berdymukhamedov’s advantage.
During the visit, the presidents had signed dozens of official documents including the Strategic Cooperation Agreement. The document shows the desire of both sides to make their relationship stronger. However, we should not expect any breakthroughs in the matter any time soon.
The recent history of the relationship between the countries has not been a simple or an unclouded one. During Niyazov’s time, it had been darkened by a number of objective and subjective reasons. For instance, we must remember that, this year, the countries are celebrating the 24th anniversary of the diplomatic relations establishment. Most of the post-Soviet states are celebrating the 25th one.
The delegitimization of the state border had made establishing friendly relationships between Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan even more difficult. The delegitimization treaty was signed in Ashkhabad in September, 2000, but was ratified by the Turkmen parliament only in February, 2001. The thing is that, during the Soviet times, a piece of land (17 867 ha) located in the territory of the Turkmen Republic had been given to the Uzbeks to be used for the economic purposes and, until today, the Uzbek citizens continue to live in that area.
It was only on May 31, 2004, that both sides reached an agreement on the neighboring states not having any territorial claims. Since then, all the official issues with the border between the two countries had been closed, the aforementioned piece of land was acknowledged as the Turkmen territory, and the Uzbek citizens living there had been given the right to receive the Turkmen citizenship in accordance with the established procedure. However, what it really meant was that they would get this right only after having officially surrendered the Uzbek citizenship. Anyone acquainted with this procedure knows that it can last for years.
The cooperation between Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in the energy and transportation spheres has been just as difficult. In April, 1996, the Turkmen Oil and Gas Ministry signed a contract with the Uzneftegazdobycha state corporation to develop a near-border oil and gas field called Yashyldepe-Kokdumalak. A part of this field is located in Turkmenistan. The Turkmen annual quota of the oil produced by the Uzbek workers equaled 574 thousand ton. According to the interstate agreement, the Kokdumalak oil is refined at the Seydinskiy plant in Turkmenistan. At the end of the 1990s – beginning of 2000s, however, these agreements were not followed through thus creating conflicting reciprocal payments situation every year.
The preparations for transferring the Turkmen part of the Uzbek Murabek – Kelif pipeline to Turkmenistan had taken more than 10 years. The agreement was ready to be signed by December 1, 2002. The signing, however, did not take place due to a dramatic deterioration in relations between the two countries.
This is not an entire list of the problems. The conflict had reached its peak at the end of 2002 after Niyazov’s “assassination” attempt. A Boris Shikhmuradov had attempted a coup d’etat and, according to the Turknem secret service’s opinion, not only did he arrive illegally through the Uzbek-Turkmen border but also he had been hiding at the Uzbek ambassador’s residence after the coup d’etat failure.
As we know, the Uzbek diplomatic mission was searched. It was an unprecedented case in the post-Soviet territory. Since that happened, the Uzbek diplomatic mission in Turkmenistan had practically stopped functioning. Only a first secretary and several technicians had remained. It was only on November 19, 2004, that the Uzbek and Turkmen leaders held a meeting in Bukhara. Then, in March, 2005, Niyazov accepted letters of credence from the new Uzbek ambassador, Abdurashid Kadyrov.
Niyazov’s visit to Bukhara was preceded by a meeting of the Defense Ministries’ representatives. It was held on September 28, 2004, in Turkmenabat. The meeting had to do with the matters of developing the military cooperation between the countries and ensuring the regional safety. As a result of this meeting, they reached an agreement on the issues of the operational information exchange and the military cooperation consulting.
In Bukhara, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan signed an agreement on friendship, trust, and cooperation development between the countries. They also signed two interstate treaties – on the citizens’ movements, on the simplified border crossing procedure for those living in the near-border areas, and on crossing the border by those servicing the economic facilities near the border.
To understand the importance of the latter, we must remember that a part of the Karshinskiy irrigating channel that provides the water to the Kashkadaryinskaya region in Uzbekistan is located in Turkmenistan. In 2002, as the relations between the countries deteriorated, Uzbekistan had unilaterally established control over the channel. At that time, the situation in Gaz-Achak district where yet another water-storage basin is located also worsened. The two countries were one step away from a military conflict.
A more constructive relationship between them had started to develop during the rule of the second Turkmen president. Uzbek President Islam Karimov’s official visit to Turkmenistan in October, 2007, and Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov’s visit to Uzbekistan in March, 2008, had contributed to it. However, up until the change of power in Uzbekistan, the level of trust between the countries had remained low even despite the objective necessity to develop their relations.
Nowadays, the relations between the countries are in a better state. The old collisions, however (including the one on the Amu Darya water withdrawal, the Turkmen electricity transfer through the Uzbek territory, and the other no less complex problems), have not yet been resolved.
Here is yet another one. The pipeline from Turkmenistan to China goes through Uzbekistan. The latter, however, regards itself not only as a transit country but also as a natural gas provider. This circumstance strengthens China’s position in negotiating the price and the quantity of the Turkmen gas – the issue that is very sensitive for the country.
The Turkmen-Uzbek relations in regard to the Turkmen gas transit have always been complicated. We should not forget that Turkmenistan’s desire to build the Caspian Costal Pipeline was caused by the wish to free the country from the transit dependency on Uzbekistan. Thus, the countries’ relations in the gas transportation sphere have not always been unclouded and are still quite volatile today.
Therefore, we should not speak about the fast improvement of the relations between the countries. Moreover, it is especially significant that the official welcoming ceremony of the distinguished guest took place not at the airport but in Independence Square in the center of Ashkhabad. Such details are quite important in the East.
The author is Andrey Medvedev, a Russian political science specialist, COO of the “TSPT PolitKontakt” Autonomous Non-Commercial Organization
