President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov made a state visit to Pakistan November 14 and "agreed to expedite energy projects," in the cautious words of Pakistan's The Dawn. The State News Agency of Turkmenistan (TDH) and Reuters reported that Turkmenistan and Pakistan had "agreed" on a gas deal. Yet when Reuters cited a Turkmen official who spun the meeting as having led to an agreement, the official revealed neither the price nor the volume to be sold, and said there were still technicalities to work out.
These “technicalities” could be considerable. The 1,700-kilometer pipeline, currently estimated to cost $7.6 billion is intended to deliver about 33 billion cubic meters per year, Turkmen Oil and Gas Minister Bayramgeldy Nedirov said recently. Yet political consensus as well as construction safety and ongoing delivery still face obstacles. First, while it seemed as if an agreement with India had been made earlier this year, even over Pakistan's head, it hasn't actually solidified and still needs to be concluded. More worrisome is the security arrangements that must be made to lay this pipeline across conflict-ridden areas in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
President Berdymukhamedov met with Pakistan's President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Razi Gilani during this trip, his first to Pakistan, and a banquet was staged in his honor. Yet when Pakistan's joint chief of staff, defense minister, and the heads of the armed services failed to appear at the state dinner, Pakistani television and online media immediately began speculating that there were problems -- the absence of the military chiefs signalled some "unease" between the civilian president and the armed forces. Possibly their absence was unrelated to Turkmenistan per se, but likely it was related to reluctance to become involved in a project involving India and also eagerly pursued by the US. Although the Pakistani press did not reference it per se, certainly Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence [ISI]), given its known current animosity to the US and India, could be a spoiler for TAPI. All of these difficulties will have to be managed, as well as issues like transit fees in Afghanistan for the pipeline to be a success.
Pakistan may have its own reasons for invoking a TAPI gas deal and a seeming agreement on a price with Turkmenistan as leverage to obtain a reduction in the price of Iranian gas. The US has put pressure on Pakistan not to proceed with the Iran-Pakistan pipeline and proffered TAPI as the alternative. For its part, Iran has no reason to do favors for Turkmenistan right now as Ashgabat is going ahead with discussions about the Trans Caspian pipeline with Azerbaijan and resolving its border demarcation, without involving Iran or Russia, which believe Caspian issues should be resolved multilaterally so they can retain their influence over them.
The annual Oil and Gas Turkmenistan conference and exposition opened with less attendance than last year from the world’s energy companies and governments but nevertheless a great deal of anticipation about the furtherance of the European Union’s goals for the Trans-Caspian. In his greetings to the conference, President Berdymukhamedov spoke about the need to acquire advanced technology and the usefulness of having mutually-profitable joint ventures, but didn’t mention Western-oriented pipelines directly. In the past, oil and gas officials have sometimes made important announcements of policies or endorsements of projects at this conference which will close November 17.
Central Asian watchers are still discussing the trip to Central Asia October 20-23 by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, but wondering why Clinton did not visit Turkmenistan, despite its important role in cooperation with the Northern Distribution Network to supply NATO in Afghanistan, and US plans to bring stability and prosperity to the region via the new Silk Road initiative as US troops are withdrawn from Afghanistan by 2014. At a conference at the Jamestown Foundation, Assistant Secretary of State Robert O. Blake, Jr. said that the Turkmen leadership did not wish Clinton to visit in October because they were busy with preparations for the 20th anniversary of their independence. While Clinton could have come a week ahead of the Turkmen holiday, it was likely considered imprudent by Turkmenistan’s leadership to impinge on its “neutrality” with a high-profile visit from the US, with which it has renewed yet still not hugely productive relations. No major energy deal has been signed by US companies, despite their “gold” sponsor support for the Oil and Gas Turkmenistan conference, although the ambassador has worked to keep joint programs on border control, counter-narcotics, training in “e-government” and such going to create the climate for further cooperation.
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) convened a two-day round table in Ashgabat to discuss plans to draft a new media law in Turkmenistan, a project that seemed somewhat of a fool’s errand, given the extraordinary control, often by the president himself, of state broadcasting and media. True, the Turkmens made a concession recently – a very rare one – by releasing from imprisonment an independent journalist, Dovletmyrat Yazkuliyev, who had written critically of the government’s handling of the Abadan explosion and who had been sentenced to five years of prison. Yazkuliyev credited his release with persistent protests by Western governments, international human rights organizations and his fellow Turkmens. Again, the premise under which these sorts of OSCE exercises are undertaken is to lay the groundwork for more effective media work when the government becomes more open. The question is whether such engagement with an insincere officialdom inevitably delays that prospect for openness, and unduly rewards state-concocted institutions like the Presidential Institute for Democracy and Human Rights -- the first word of whose title explains why there is little democracy or human rights.
Turkmen authorities have sweeping controls over the Internet and citizens' cellular communications, indicated vividly when they shut off Russia's MTS service last December, depriving 2.4 million people of mobile and Internet access. While many rushed to try to sign up with the national government provider, they faced long lines and poor service. Now News Briefing Central Asia reports that Turkmenistan's Ministry of National Security is stepping up its already intense surveillance of its citizens' use of mobile phones, and its ban on the use of mobile phones for months during preparations for Independence Day is a move which some fear may stay in place.
Catherine A. Fitzpatrick compiles the Turkmenistan weekly roundup for EurasiaNet. She is also editor of EurasiaNet's Sifting the Karakum blog.
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