The globetrotting of President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov continues unabated, this time with his attendance of this weekend’s CIS summit in Tajikistan.
As well as adding another country to the list of his visited destinations, Berdymukhammedov’s trip also stands out as the first made to Dushanbe by a Turkmen head of state after the collapse of the Soviet Union. As Russian news agency Itar-Tass noted, the scale of economic relations between the two countries is minute. With a meagre foreign trade turnover in the first eight months of 2007 standing at only $32 million, Turkmenistan is only Tajikistan’s sixth largest CIS trade partner. Nonetheless, it is curious that states formerly bound by a common political unity should have drifted so completely apart.
This could be about to change, however.
A nominal shift in the impetus of bilateral affairs came on October 2, when Turkmen Ambassador Akhmed Kurbanov presented his credentials to Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon. Though there is no readily available information about this individual, it is notable that a state visit should have been prefaced by such a change in high-level personnel. So, while we have no way of discerning whether Kurbanov will be more competent or qualified for the post, we can appreciate the symbolic gesture of diplomatic renewal.
In addition to concluding a bilateral treaty on friendship and cooperation, Tajikistan on Friday also sealed a five-year deal for the annual supply of 1.2 billion kilowatts per hour from Turkmenistan. The contract was furthered bolstered after Uzbekistan agreed to make its energy grids available for transit. Tashkent’s new-found amenability is particularly central as earlier an electricity supply agreement was discontinued in 2001 over transit issues.
In comments to reporters after meeting the Turkmen delegation, Rakhmon confirmed that the deal could not have been completed without agreement from all three parties.
“I express my gratitude to the presidents of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan … for their assistance in solving this issue,” Rahmon said, Russian news agency Interfax reported.
In turn, Berdymukhammedov said Turkmenistan was open to the possibility of importing Tajik aluminium and agricultural produce.
When electricity generation and aluminium are discussed in the same briefing, one cannot help but recall that Tajikistan ripped up plans for a joint dam construction project with Russian aluminium giant RusAl in August. Dushanbe’s stake in the project, which was expected to come online in 2009-2010, would have been potential for greater energy security, a vital issue for a nation used to annual trials with widespread electricity shortages.
In this context, Turkmenistan has taken on the guise of a regional ally providing leverage and breathing space for an impoverished neighbour. If Tajikistan can ensure reliable medium-term electricity supplies, they can negotiate more convincingly with investors invested in its natural resources.
More broadly, the emergence of Ashgabat as a broker in regional affairs is a strong indication of Berdymukhammedov’s success in repositioning Turkmenistan from being an international hermit state into a serious geopolitical actor. The risk, as always, is that this type of strategy could easily incur Russia’s irritation. On his recent trip to the United States, Berdymukhammedov pleased his hosts by indicating that energy negotiations with Moscow were proving strained. This tension has been evident for some weeks and could rise with the passing of time as Russia and Turkmenistan fail to resolve issues holding up a conclusive agreement on the construction of a new Caspian gas pipeline, which is a key instrument in ensuring Moscow’s ability to export gas to Europe in the coming decades.