Within a week of meetings on October 21-22 between Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, the Turkmen Foreign Ministry blasted the Kremlin for misleading statements in the Russian media about the talks. In a stinging denunciation on October 28, the Turkmen Foreign Ministry said Russia's upbeat claims about an agreement to freeze the long-stalled Prikaspiisky pipeline and possible involvement in the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline “had no basis.” Ashgabat said that it had built its part of the Prikaspiisky under a past agreement and Russia wasn't fulfilling its commitments to the project. As for TAPI, only the TAPI parties together could decide who should fund or assist their project, and Turkmenistan had not endorsed Russian participation. Most offensive for the Turkmen leadership was the claim of Russian Vice Premier Igor Deputy that because the high-cost Western-backed Nabucco pipeline was hopeless, Turkmenistan had no prospects in any Europe-oriented energy collaboration.

While Turkmenistan's frigid message to Russia was clear, what wasn't apparent was just what program Ashgabat does intend to follow. Turkmenistan likely doesn't have the funds nor would it likely find the partners at a time of decreased energy demand to complete Prikaspiisky. And while President Berdymukhamedov appears to have warmed to the Nabucco project, it is just as European companies may be looking elsewhere for the gas to supply it. Perhaps the Turkmen leader has other plans, although he continues to hold his cards close. This week another European consortium headed by Italian energy company ENI said that it expected to sign a deal with Turkmenistan by the end of November to ship compressed gas on tankers over the Caspian to Baku, skirting Russian-dominated delivery routes. This plan would ostensibly avoid the expense and long wait for completion of the construction of Nabucco. ENI proposed a way of compressing gas on the ships, which would be cheaper than shipping liquefied natural gas (LNG).

U.S. companies are also back courting Ashgabat again this week. In June, a high-profile delegation of U.S. energy officials and oil majors -- with a few human rights officials tagging along -- had their first major energy meeting with President Berdymukhamedov. In August, the president appeared encouraging by inviting Chevron, ConocoPhilips, Mubadala Development Co and TX Oil. to bid for drilling rights on Caspian Sea shelf blocks (two of which had previously been promised to Lukoil of Russia, which was left fuming.) In September, while in New York at the UN General Assembly, again the Turkmen leader met with energy officials and executives and seemed to promise further cooperation. Chevron's executives met with the president again in Ashgabat on October 9 to discuss development of the Caspian shelf. ExxonMobil has also reopened its office in Ashgabat, and Rob Franklin, president of ExxonMobil Upstream Ventures met with the Turkmen leader on October 26.

Meanwhile, while noting the "large potential for partnership" and indicating an overall desire to "diversify," President Berdymukhamedov has not yet made it clear whether he will join Nabucco or when he will grant permits to American companies to drill offshore. ExxonMobil pulled out in 2002 when it failed to discover oil in the Garashsyzlyk field. These companies can't fail to find it difficult to work in Turkmenistan in any event -- the leadership is capricious, they are waiting sufferance on one powerful man's whims and they cannot be sure that their investment is protected, given the non-transparent nature of the Turkmen government and a history of murky financial dealings involving the siphoning of the country's energy profits off to the top leadership's private bank accounts.

Crude Accountability, an NGO that has sought environmental justice regarding energy extraction in the Caspian and has campaigned for more openness on the budgets of such projects, issued a protest letter this week, expressing concern about the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), which is granting a $62 million loan to Turkmenistan to modernize the port of Turkmenbashi. Not only is Turkmenbashi the anchor city for the president's pet project, the Avaza tourist zone, it is the port from which the compressed gas would travel to Azerbaijan’s pipeline network. In addition to American companies, ENI was one of the companies encouraged by President Berdymukhamedov last June to submit proposals.

Some hesitancy about Turkmenistan's real intentions regarding Nabucco may account for the decision of the European Parliament to postpone the vote on the ratification of a Partnership and Cooperation (PCA) Agreement until March 2011. Although originally the parliamentarians expected to vote by the end of November, there has also been some debate about the sincerity and depth of President Berdymukhamedov's reforms. Human rights and civil society groups, including Human Rights Watch, Bankwatch, and the Open Society Institute, testified at the European Parliament about the superficiality of reforms, the ongoing violation of human rights ranging from freedom of association to freedom of movement and the lack of transparency in finance. [Editor’s Note: EurasiaNet is funded by Open Society Foundations.]

Turkmenistan celebrated the 19th anniversary of its independence on October 27, and as usual on such festive occasions of state, President Berdymukhamedov surrounded himself with loyal supporters. These ranged from the Russian companies Itera and Sistema that are demonstrably "not Gazprom" and are rumored to be participating in some major energy projects; a bevy of Turkish construction companies that have helped the Turkmen leader build all the government palaces and the Avaza facilities; and some hopeful American oil executives from ExxonMobil, as well as the Turkmenistan-U.S. Business Council. The Turkmen leader was especially proud of the honorary degrees and citations he received from the Strategic Management Society of India and the Centre for Management Studies of Jamia Millia Islamia University of India; the Institute for Public Management and Community Service of the Florida International University; and Lincoln University of California.

Some bad news that mars the president's showcase Avaza project: 68 cases of HIV have been reported in Turkmenbashi on the Caspian coast. The pattern seen in other countries has come into play in this boom town -- numerous foreign construction workers and business people, mainly males without their families; poor Turkmen women seizing the opportunity to gain income from sex work; and injection drug users. In neighboring Uzbekistan, the reported rate jumped from 1,000 cases to 15,000 cases in a short time, but the problem in Turkmenistan is the government refuses to make testing available or to report the real story of what is happening with the HIV virus. Turkmenistan claims only two cases have occurred in recent years, one of a person who died. The UN bodies that engage with Turkmenistan on HIV/AIDS -- WHO and UNICEF -- have refrained from public criticism about the absence of candid reporting and instead have strived to keep their presence in the country in order to engage in education and prevention programs. These are evidently not working as well as expected.