The Russian corporation Sistema, of which cell phone operator MobileTeleSystems (MTS) is a member, put out a story recently that it would seek compensation from Ashgabat for shutting down mobile phone service for 2.4 million MTS customers in Turkmenistan. But the Turkmen government responded, saying it had absolutely no intentions of providing compensation, as the five-year contract, which expired in December 2010, ended lawfully and it was the prerogative of the Turkmen Ministry of Communications not to extend it.
Some of the customers have been absorbed by the national mobile provider Altyn Asyr, but many still evidently remain without telephone – and Internet connection – awaiting new ventures the Turkmen government is pursuing with Nokia Siemens and Huawaei, the Chinese mobile company. MTS has launched suits in various international arbitration courts but the outcome is uncertain. The episode is indicative of the limitations of new media technologies, once they’re in the hands of dictators: people may enjoy greater freedom of Internet connectivity for a time, but it can be removed at a whim.
The Turkmen leader is pursuing a whole e-government plan full tilt, with greater investment in technology, some drawn from the West, and some from China (like filtering and site-blocking devices). This month, President Berdymukhamedov held an interactive video conference with the governors of Turkmenistan’s five provinces, and heard their reports on economic progress. But the session turned into a venue for the president to publicly reprimand officials in some districts who were lagging beyond on the state-dictated quotas for the wheat harvest. Before, hapless officials like the chairman of the state chemical concern Turkmenhimiya, recently denounced, would be reprimanded asynchronously in the print media or occasionally on taped television shows, giving them a bit of a heads up; now they face real-time scolding that amplifies their embarrassment.
Relations with Russia have been strained since the Gazprom price disagreement and accident compensation fiascos, that led Russia to drastically reduce its purchases from a one-time high of 50 billion cubic meters to only about 10 bcm, and the MTS story was painful, of course. Yet Ashgabat has kept up good relations with some firms, such as Itera, which has invested in the Avaza Caspian resort complex, and has visibly improved educational ties, with a decision to accept foreign diplomas (including many Russian degrees) as valid in Turkmenistan for job placement. Several high-profile science conferences have been convened with Russia. Now, President Berdymukhamedov has fully restored the right of anyone in Turkmenistan to receive Russian periodicals, which has been restricted only to some specialized research institutes. The Turkmen leader seems to have realized that by restricting exchange with Turkmenistan’s main scientific and educational partner, and particularly ease of access to scientific journals, he was only hampering Turkmenistan’s development. Most of the Turkmen students who study abroad are in Russia and Turkey.
On June 14-15, the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) members met in Astana to discuss a variety of issues from response to the Arab Spring to combating terrorism and drug trafficking. Turkmenistan is not a member and does not even observe the SCO meetings. A Russian analyst has indicated that China wants to bring Turkmenistan, along with Mongolia, into the SCO as members. At the last meeting, the SCO talks seem to be more preoccupied with the need for economic aid to the Central Asian partners. Ashgabat doesn’t need to join the SCO to get a generous helping of soft loans and aid from China – Beijing has put in more than $8.1 billion into building the pipeline from Turkmenistan to China, and has been tapped for more assistance.
The EU is pursuing Turkmenistan in various forms. RWE, German’s gas giant and a member of the Nabucco pipeline consortium, has just announced a tender for a new drilling platform in the Caspian Sea in a sector where it has an agreement with the government to explore. The Turkmenistan-UK Trade Council met recently to discuss energy and other commercial projects. After first defending its 2008 assessment of Turkmenistan’s vast gas reserves from critics who claimed it was exaggerated and based only on Turkmen government reports, the British firm Gaffney, Cline and Associates has revised upward its estimates since the discovery of new gas fields. In May, Gaffney, Cline announced that the South Yolotan field could contain as much as 20 trillion cubic meters (tcm), more than the 16 tcm initially estimated, and deemed the location the second largest gas field in the world after Qatar.
In a rare demonstration of grievances, 50 Turkmen citizens gathered in front of the Hotel Oguzkent in Ashgabat, where President Berdymukhamedov has his official residence, to complain about demolition of their homes in a city renovation project near the municipal water management headquarters, chrono-tm.org reported. Later, there was a report that four women were arrested in connection with the demonstration, but their names were not known. The official media suddenly began reporting that the parliament was busy drafting a new housing code with the option of privatizing apartments, possibly in response to the demonstration. President Berdymukhamedov was sufficiently rattled by the protest – almost unheard of in the heavy police-controlled environment of his country – that he urged housing officials to proceed with reconstruction while taking into account the needs of citizens, and a commission was established to which citizens could send in complaints. Human rights activists were skeptical about how effective such a body could be, given how rapidly security agents hunted down the protest organizers.
Catherine A. Fitzpatrick compiles the Turkmenistan weekly roundup for EurasiaNet. She is also editor of EurasiaNet's Sifting the Karakum blog. To subscribe to the weekly email with a digest of international and regional press, write [email protected]
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