“A good neighbour policy is the guiding principle of the Turkmen leader’s foreign policy, which in being implemented through collaborative practices with both border countries and beyond. Turkmen-Uzbek relations are a convincing case of the fruitfulness of such cooperation.”

An excerpt from a commentary by the Turkmen state news agency after President Saparmurat Niyazov’s visit to Uzbekistan in November 2004.

Like Niyazov’s visit in 2004, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov two-day trip to Uzbekistan starting Thursday will be a landmark occasion.
Niyazov went to Uzbekistan, leaving his own country for the first time in two years, as the leader of a hermit nation to a neighbour whose cooperation in the West’s military campaign against an extremist regime had won it grudging respectability. Relations at the time were soured by Turkmen allegations that Tashkent was involved in providing assistance to individuals involved in the alleged assassination attempt on Niyazov in November 2002.
In Bukhara, a city located a half-hour or so drive from the border, the leaders of the two countries professed mutual respect and historical solidarity. Niyazov spoke warmly to his former Soviet republican counterpart, praising past cooperation and promising more of the same in the years to come.
The declaration of friendship signed on the occasion, which raised hopes of eased trading exchanges between the two nations, were quashed by reality, however. A lavish opening ceremony in Turkmenistan for petrol stations created to serve neighbouring Uzbeks seeking cheap fuel was snubbed by the guests, according to an account by the Turkmenistan Initiative for Human Rights. The initiative had been prompted by the vibrant cross-border trade in cheap Turkmen fuel, but the petrol stations remained unused and were eventually dismantled.
Reports from Western travellers making the border crossing suggest that suspicion and distrust still lingers. It is unlikely that the situation is any easier for the communities living either side of the border, many of whom would stand to make a lucrative income from an exchange in agricultural goods.
Berdymukhammedov will arrive in Uzbekistan as a world statesman, a figure sought after by Europe, the United States and Russia. As his recent engagement with Central Asian neighbours indicates, however, Berdymukhammedov is also interested in creating influence closer to home. It will be of interest to see what the scheduled signature of bilateral documents will actually bring.
The agenda, as described by Turkmen state media, will be determined by current international issues of mutual interest. In the immediate geographic context, this may be a reference to some of the sticking issues holding up a definitive resolution of a trilateral agreement between Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Russia to boost gas supplies from Central Asia. Although the mooted coastal Caspian pipeline has been the subject of most attention, the agreement to boost Turkmen contribution to Russia energy security also hinges on plans to boost the capacity of the Central Asia-Center Pipeline, which traverses Uzbekistan.

The expansion of the Central Asia–Centre gas pipeline envisaged by the May accord has been completely overlooked by Caspian-centric observers, but it still remains a crucial factor in any eventual victory that Turkmen gas now seems to represent. In spite of direct meetings in meetings, in the CIS summit in Dushanbe and the Caspian conference in Tehran, Berdymukhammedov and Russian President Vladimir Putin have not settled any of the issues apparently agreed upon a few months ago.
If the May 2007 accord, which did not include Uzbek President Islam Karimov, stands any chance of success, it will have to take on a quadripartite quality. Yet, negotiations with litigious neighbours are normally a standard way of killing of any complex negotiation, so the upcoming meeting in Uzbekistan could go either way.
But Berdymukhammedov has repeatedly displayed himself as a leader willing and able to engage with nations regional and global. In a twist of irony, Turkmenistan can now lend Uzbekistan respectability and solidarity with such state visits. Karimov is now the president that needs support and credibility, both of which his Turkmen counterpart can potentially supply. More importantly, Uzbekistan has a unique chance of locking itself into a powerful Central Asian energy pact should the near-Caspian pipeline agreement be realised in full.
Unaccountably, Turkmenistan is acting as a source of regional solidarity these days. Energy could yet provide an impetus for neighbourly conduct, despite the long-standing differences in the region. What is more certain is that Berdymukhammedov’s visit will not be an exercise in pointless vanity. Diplomatic indifference, or neutrality as it was dubbed by Niyazov’s government, is definitively a matter of the past. With Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan now seemingly travelling in the same orbit, the possibility of Uzbekistan, which has recently been issued a light reprieve by the European Union, joining the same orbit presents intriguing possibilities.