VZCZCXRO9308
RR RUEHDBU RUEHLN RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHAH #0150/01 0371304
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
R 061304Z FEB 07
FM AMEMBASSY ASHGABAT
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC 8336
RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE
RUEHIL/AMEMBASSY ISLAMABAD 1812
RUEHNE/AMEMBASSY NEW DELHI 0609
RUEHBUL/AMEMBASSY KABUL 0555
RUEHKT/AMEMBASSY KATHMANDU 0087
RUEHLM/AMEMBASSY COLOMBO 0130

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 ASHGABAT 000150 
 
SIPDIS 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR SCA/CEN (PERRY) 
INFO SCA/PPD (VAN DE VATE), IIP/G/NEA-SA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: KPAO PREL PINR TX
SUBJECT: TURKMENISTAN'S MINISTRY OF CULTURE OPEN TO COOPERATION -- 
ALONG PRESCRIBED LINES 
 
SUMMARY 
------- 
 
¶1.  (U) In the first meeting between the embassy and the Minister of 
Culture in over a year, Minister Enebay Atayeva proved herself a 
seasoned apparatchik but nervous about appearing too open in this 
time of political transition.  Though she dominated the meeting with 
rhetoric of cultural nationalism, her suggestions of specific 
ministry projects and goals provided a context for suggestions of 
U.S. Government cooperation.  Given this and the generally positive 
history between post and the ministry, the meeting left post with 
hopes for increased engagement once the presidential election is 
over. End Summary. 
 
READY TO COOPERATE 
------------------ 
 
¶2.  (U) Atayeva spoke during most of this 45-minute meeting, and a 
couple of times veered off onto unrelated tangents, giving the 
impression that she wished to block questions or requests from the 
delegation.  Nonetheless, Atayeva outlined continuing priorities for 
the ministry and proved receptive when delegation members asked if 
she would be open to further cooperation with the U.S. Government in 
areas including: international events and festivals; study and 
propagation of folkloric tradition; theater programs -- including 
music and dance; and youth arts education and development.  Atayeva 
expressed receptiveness to hosting Fulbright specialists and 
bilateral exchanges with cultural institutes in the United States. 
She also expressed a willingness to explore a reopening of the IATP 
Center once housed at the National Library, in the new National 
Library-Cultural complex.  Throughout, Atayeva was careful to remain 
vague and noncommittal, but still positive, on prospects for 
increased bilateral cooperation in the cultural sphere. 
 
¶3.  (U) The U.S. delegation included the Department of State's 
Director of Press and Public Affairs for South and Central Asia 
Katherine Van De Vate, Division Director for Freedom Support Act 
Programs Deborah Klepp, representative for the Bureau of Democracy, 
Human Rights and Labor Catherine Kuchta-Helbling, Public Affairs 
Officer Andrew Paul and Cultural Affairs Officer Sarah Hutchison; 
Atayeva was joined by the head of the Ministry of Culture's 
International Department Agadurdy Akmyradov. 
 
¶4.  (U) The practiced but restrained Atayeva led by thanking the 
U.S. Government for sending the delegation to meet with the 
ministry.  Atayeva sounded brusque when noting that Deputy Assistant 
Secretary of State Evan Feigenbaum had not met with the ministry but 
 
SIPDIS 
with the Institute of Manuscripts during his visit earlier in 
January.  Van De Vate thanked the minister for her own fruitful 
meeting at the Institute on January 29, at which post had suggested 
possible partnerships with the Institute and U.S. specialists or 
institutions in the United States; she also thanked the minister for 
her ministry's support of post cultural programs such as the 
Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation grant program.  (Note: 
The Ministry of Culture has been supportive of most of post's 
suggested cultural programming and particularly of the Ambassador's 
Fund Program.  End Note.)  The minister several times during the 
meeting invited the delegation to visit Turkmenistan's state-run 
musical and theater productions, museums and other cultural sites. 
Van de Vate noted that some delegation members would visit the Kone 
Urgench historical site in Dashoguz on February 2. 
 
Turkmen Pride 
--------------- 
 
¶5.  (U) In response to Van de Vate's question about the ministry's 
priority areas for development, Atayeva began a soliloquy on the 
importance of Turkmen culture and national identity to the state of 
Turkmenistan and a description of recent important ministry 
projects.  Atayeva stated that in any country, its culture was 
deeply intertwined with the country's history and national identity, 
and reiterated the Ministry's support for late President Saparmurat 
Niyazov's plan for the political, economic and cultural development 
of Turkmenistan until 2020.  Atayeva praised Niyazov for his efforts 
to outline and support Turkmen culture as a way of strengthening the 
Turkmen nation. 
 
¶6.  (U) Akmuradov described a planned April 1-7 theater and folklore 
festival, for which the ministry said it had issued 30 invitations 
worldwide for participation.  Atayeva named such international 
festivals and conferences as a priority area for the ministry 
because "in contrast with previous festivals" this effort will 
involve groups from the United States, South America and "at least 
 
ASHGABAT 00000150  002 OF 003 
 
 
three to four countries from each continent" to provoke an exchange 
of ideas and perspectives.  (Note:  Post has not learned to whom the 
invitations for U.S. participation have been sent.  End Note.) 
Other international conferences which Atayeva referenced as models 
of the ministry's goals included a women's conference, a forum on 
the Turkmen national poet Magtymguly, a Ruhnama conference, a 
children's art conference, and conference on the cultural heritage 
in Kone Urgench that marked UNESCO's designation of the site as a 
World Heritage Site.  Atayeva dwelled on UNESCO's high esteem for 
Kone Urgench and spoke in similar words about Margush (another site 
supported by an Ambassador's Fund grant).  Atayeva said that the 
Kone Urgench conference prompted the Ministry of Culture to order 
that a faculty of restoration and preservation be opened at the 
Institute of Culture; the faculty just accepted its first fifteen 
students in fall 2006. 
 
¶7.  (U) The folklore festival was also illustrative of the 
ministry's emphasis on traditional dance and music, and Atayeva 
spoke at length about how traditional forms of art combined with a 
strong knowledge of national history provide the basis for modern 
artistic expression.  She praised each of Turkmenistan's regions for 
its distinctive cultural legacy and particularly Balkan Welayat for 
its highly preserved and "goal oriented" dance traditions.  It was 
difficult to draw a line between folklore culture and national 
traditions, she noted; through expressions of folk dance and music 
Turkmenistan's artists expressed "the real Turkmenistan."  (Comment: 
 The Minister took this opportunity to describe her attendance at a 
traditional Lithuanian dance event in Lithuania where she asked a 
bystander about the dance's meaning.  The dance was "monotone" and 
seemed to have no meaning, and the bystander knew nothing about this 
expression of his own culture.  Such criticisms of other countries 
or governments is a common theme in conversations with local 
officials and the Ministry of Education, usually in the context of 
host government attempts to stymie post programming in the 
educational sphere.  End Comment). 
 
¶8.  (U) The construction of several new drama theaters in Ashgabat 
and the regions and the ministry's continued support for "people's 
theaters" in the regions was also part of the continuing plan of the 
Ministry of Culture.  Atayeva praised the latter as an expressive 
outlet for all strata of society, including "housewives, students, 
doctors and technicians" and noted the ministry's consistent support 
and guidance of these theaters.  (Comment:  Post has not seen 
evidence of such community theaters but assumes Atayeva was making a 
reference to Soviet-era amateur theater clubs that used to operate 
through places of work and in communities but that may have been 
absorbed by formal state structures.  End Comment.) 
 
¶9.  (U) In keeping with a ministry desire to cultivate a knowledge 
of Turkmen cultural traditions among the young, the ministry 
continued to carry out national competitions, originally initiated 
by a presidential decree, to find the most talented young musicians 
and other artists throughout Turkmenistan and to showcase their work 
in theaters.  According to Atayeva, the ministry demonstrated its 
ample support for arts education through its administration of the 
Institute of Culture, National Conservatory, and art and music 
vocational and secondary schools throughout Turkmenistan.  Atayeva 
stressed the need to work with students -- those "whose opinions are 
unformed" and teachers of the Institute of Culture. 
 
¶10.  (U) Atayeva shifted from theater to museums, noting that each 
welayat had a strong regional museum, many of which have unique 
exhibitions not even found in Ashgabat's National Museum.  As part 
of the new Library-Cultural Center being built in Ashgabat, the 
complex's museum would display items owned by President Niyazov and 
describe the development of Turkmenistan in tandem with the rule of 
Niyazov. 
 
IATP 
---- 
 
¶11.  (U) At this point Van De Vate was able to get in a word to ask 
about museum partnerships and then to follow up on post's concern 
about the eviction of the Internet Access and Training Program site 
formerly housed at the National Library.  Atayeva grew visibly 
annoyed at the latter question, though she expressed a willingness 
to look into reopening IATP at the new Library-Cultural Center.  The 
new Center was slated to have dozens of public access Internet 
terminals as well as a concert hall and the museum.  The new library 
would house 6.5 million items, one million more than the current 
National Library, making Internet connectivity in the center 
"essential," according to Atayeva.  While the center would open 
officially on February 16, it would take months to move and 
 
ASHGABAT 00000150  003 OF 003 
 
 
catalogue the entire collection. 
 
¶12.  (U) Clearly eager to close the meeting, Atayeva embarked on an 
speech on the importance of women leaders, telling a couple of 
joking anecdotes to suggest that men were irrelevant.  She also made 
a disjointed attempt to draw a connection between her view and 
Turkmen national culture, suggesting that Turkmen culture values 
women's judgment as equal to or often exceeding that of men. 
Atayeva closed the meeting by agreeing enthusiastically to a 
suggestion that post meet again with ministry officials to discuss 
particular programs and urged Emboffs to route plans through the 
Ministry of Foreign Affairs via a diplomatic note as is customary. 
 
COMMENT AND BIOGRAPHIC NOTES 
---------------------------- 
 
¶13.  (SBU) Atayeva arguably is the second highest ranking woman in 
the government after Parliamentary Speaker President Akja 
Nurberdiyeva (septel).  Both during the Niyazov's funeral and at the 
February 2 40-day wake ceremony at the Gypjak national mosque, 
Atayeva and Nurberdiyeva were given special duties to accompany 
Niyazov's family.  During a January 11 remembrance day event 
observing the 1881 massacre of Turkmen by Tzarist troops at Gokdepe, 
Nurberdiyeva led the female government officials and diplomatic 
corps representatives to the balcony of the mosque.  Atayeva sat to 
her right and the Deputy Governor of Ahal Province to her left.  The 
Minister of Education Shemshat Annagylyjova sat past the various 
handmaidens down to the far left; and nobody talked to her. 
 
¶14.  (U) Atayeva, in office since late April, 2006,  is herself an 
alumna of the International Visitor Leadership Program (she 
participated in the 1999 program Agricultural Trade: Food Safety and 
Regulation) and, as she proudly stated, has a broad range of 
professional experience.  While a pediatrician by training, she has 
served as Minister of Finance and Economics, Minister of Social 
Welfare, Hakim of Ahal Welayat (from which position she was 
dismissed for unspecified "shortcomings") and as Chairwoman of the 
state-run Women's Union.  (Note:  The Deputy Minister of Culture is 
an alumnus of the State Department's TV-COOP program; post is 
currently following up on a program for the coming year, having 
received a proposal from state television.  End Note.) 
 
¶15.  (SBU) That Atayeva expressed a desire for expansion of ministry 
efforts in arts education leaves open the possibility that post can 
offer a Fulbright Senior Specialist to work with the Institute of 
Culture.  Such a specialist could be based either at the Institute, 
a vocational school, or the conservatory to assist in broadening the 
scope of instruction in the visual arts, music or theater, develop 
institute or school administrative capacity, or to assist in 
curriculum of the new archaeology/conservation department, among 
others subject areas. 
 
¶16.  (U) Post is thinking along similar lines for educational or 
research institutes under other ministries, such as the Agricultural 
or Medical Institutes, vocational schools and institutes, as well as 
scientific institutes.  Post can also work within the folklore, arts 
festival and youth development goals or target areas to create 
programs of common interest that would be available both to the 
audience within the research, educational and public institutes of 
the Ministry of Culture, as well as to an unfiltered public audience 
through the American Corners and Public Affairs Section outreach 
events.  One idea is to bring a Native American dance troupe to 
participate in the April folklore festival, which could then to 
travel to the regions for independent programs with young 
audiences. 
 
¶17.  (U) While the minister was not pleased with the mention of 
IATP, she did not reject the suggestion that IATP operate within the 
new library.  These positive signs, mixed with the minister's heavy 
dose of nationalistic rhetoric, suggests that though attitudes 
within the ministry will take a long time to evolve to create a real 
dialogue and openness with post, nonetheless the ministry has 
revealed several common interests which post can use to expand its 
cooperation in the cultural sphere.  End Comment. 
 
BRUSH