I’ve just read an article written by a Russian daily’s Vremya Novostey journalist Arkadiy Dubnov entitled „The Turkmen issue in Europe” with an excellent subheading: “Western human rights activists look like Russia’s allies”. The author writes about the European Parliament’s repeated rejection of a temporary commercial agreement to be signed between the EU and Turkmenistan. The agreement would pave the way for negotiations on the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline. However, the parliamentarians refused to remove the conditions that Ashgabat must fulfill before the potential ratification of the agreement. The conditions include e.g.:

… freeing all political prisoners, allowing the operation of NGO’s, granting the representatives of the International Red Cross access to Turkmen prisons, conducting democratic elections under the supervision of international observers.

It is obvious that the Turkmen government will never fulfill those demands, as president Berdymukhamedov has already hinted that he does not want to “politicize the relations with the West”. Thus, if the West continues to exert pressure on Ashgabat as far as human rights are concerned, it will have to give up on Turkmen gas. That’s the brutal truth.

I would like to quote one more piece of Dubnov’s article with which I, unfortunately, have to agree:

The human rights activists, whether they want it or not, support Moscow in the complicated geopolitical game unfolding between Russia on one side and the US and the EU on the other. Unlike Brussels and Washington, Russia has never put forward any “humanitarian” demands towards Turkmenistan as a condition of cooperation in the gas field.

I would just add to this that a similar conclusion could be drawn with regard to China.