The recurrent idea of building a Trans-Caspian pipeline has been raised again, this time by Azerbaijan’s Energy Minister Natiq Aliev, according to an Associated Press article. As on former occasions, the proposition was framed in a belief in the necessity to defy Russia’s current near-monopoly on exports of Central Asian gas. The project would […]
In October 2005, Vassily Sidorov, President of MTS, Russia’s largest cellular phone operator, spoke about his confidence that the Turkmen mobile phone market would grow to one million users in the forthcoming two to three years. President Saparmurat Niyazov boosted the likelihood of this eventuality on Monday by calling for the introduction of a […]
The latest issue of the Reporting Central Asia section of the Institute of War and Peace Reporting features an interesting article about the decline of Turkmen identity in Iran. According to Muhammad Tahir’s report, the number of people speaking in the Turkmen language has dropped dramatically, most notably among the young, who perceive Farsi […]
Some resolution seems to have been found in the apparently never-ending dispute between Ukraine and Turkmenistan over outstanding debts for natural gas supplies. Negotiations were held in the Ministry of Oil and Gas in Dushanbe over the last weekend with a high-level Ukrainian delegation headed by Naftogaz Ukrainy Commercial Director Anatoly Popadiuk. According to […]
Radio Free Europe has reported that two of its journalists were arrested in Turkmenistan on March 7. Meret Khommadov and Jumadurdy Ovezov were detained in the Mary region, though their current location is not known. The nature of the charges has not yet been disclosed and the men are reportedly being forbidden from speaking […]
A fascinating opinion article by Rafis Abazov, author of the Historical Dictionary of Turkmenistan, was posted exclusively on the site of Karakum, a Turkmen blogger. What follows is the English language version of the text that appeared here:
TURKMENISTAN’S NEXT CHALLENGE
I was asked to write a short commentary about challenges that Turkmenistan might face in […]
An article appearing on a French television magazine, Télérama, has revealed details of a program about President Saparmurat Niyazov made on one of the country’s major networks back in 1996. The show was made on occasion of Niyazov’s state visit to France and was ostensibly created as a vanity project in praise of the […]
According to a Turkmen Initiative for Human Rights press statement, residents in Turkmenbashi have been without water for the last two months. The causes for this problem is reportedly the breakdown of the water purifying plant in Balkanabat, the capital of the Balkan velyat, which is the source of drinking water for residents on […]
Deutsche Welle recently carried a report on an Uzbek NGO, which I have translated in full. I apologise in advance for any grievous inaccuracies.
In the Uzbek region of Khorezm, a non-governmental organization called Nazhot (Hope) has been operating for the last six years. The group, which is not registered with the Ministry of […]
According to a report in the Russian newspaper Parlamentskaya Gazeta, earlier this month the Duma forwarded a request to the Kremlin to provide financially for Russian pensioners living in Turkmenistan. The proposal has come in the wake of the recently drafted law on pensions, which has caused considerable concern about the fate of elderly […]
