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RUEHNO/USMISSION USNATO PRIORITY 1349

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 06 ASHGABAT 000653 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR SCA A/S BOUCHER 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREL PGOV ECON SCUL SOCI SNAR KDEM TX
SUBJECT: TURKMENISTAN:  SCENESETTER FOR THE VISIT OF 
ASSISTANT SECRETARY BOUCHER, MAY 27-30 
 
REF: A. ASHGABAT 0363 
     ¶B. ASHGABAT 0219 
 
¶1.  (U) Sensitive but unclassified.  Not for public Internet. 
 
¶2.  (SBU) SUMMARY:  Embassy Ashgabat warmly welcomes your 
visit to Turkmenistan as an important opportunity to advance 
our bilateral dialogue in the areas of education and the 
human dimension.  President Bush met briefly with President 
Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov on April 3 at the NATO Summit in 
Bucharest.  Other high-level U.S. meetings with him have been 
Senator Richard Lugar in January, Energy Secretary Bodman in 
November 2007, and Secretary Rice in September 2007 during 
the UNGA in New York.  Coordinator for Eurasian Energy 
Diplomacy Ambassador Steven Mann meets with Berdimuhamedov 
regularly, most recently on February 28.  Into the second 
year of his presidency, Berdimuhamedov is increasingly 
self-confident and will not hesitate to speak his mind.  We 
believe his instincts are generally right, even if his 
understanding is elementary and his implementation timelines 
unrealistically quick.  Turkmenistan will gradually bring its 
standards -- including educational and human rights -- in 
line with international levels.  But he's starting from 
almost zero with very few on his team who have the experience 
and capacity to implement the reforms he says he wants.  Like 
many ex-Soviet governments, Turkmenistan relies too heavily 
on presidential decrees and the power of law-on-paper.  The 
longer-term monumental task will be to change a century of 
national political psychology, the entrenched bureaucracy, 
and the culture of rent-seeking.  END SUMMARY. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) Nearly sixteen months into the post-Niyazov era, 
Turkmenistan is becoming significantly different from the 
international bad-joke pariah state it was under the late 
President-for-Life.  But precisely what Turkmenistan is 
becoming is still a work in progress.  Evidence increasingly 
suggests it could well one day become a responsible partner 
for the United States and a normal international player.  As 
detailed in both reftels, Berdimuhamedov's fundamental 
policies have been promising.  However, he faces an uphill 
struggle against political traditions that favor autocratic 
governance models and a bureaucratic capacity stunted by 15 
years of Niyazovian repression and solipcism.  The challenge 
will not be to get new reforms on the books -- Berdimuhamedov 
is already beginning to do this -- but rather, to change the 
attitudes and modi operandi of those officials responsible 
for implementing the new policies. 
 
DEMOCRACY AND HUMAN RIGHTS 
 
¶4.  (SBU) President Berdimuhamedov has made a public 
commitment to bring Turkmenistan's laws and practices -- 
including in areas of human rights -- up to international 
standards.  At his order, the country's legal, human rights 
and legislative bodies are working overtime to rewrite or 
draft more than 30 laws and codes, including on religion and 
civic organizations, family, and criminal and criminal 
procedures codes.  The President on April 16 also ordered 
that the country's constitution -- revised four times since 
1992 -- be redrafted in time for a September meeting of the 
Halk Maslahaty -- the massively large, rubber-stamp People's 
Council, which is responsible for approving constitutional 
changes.  While USAID, UNDP, the OSCE Center and other 
foreign donors are seeking to offer as much advice as 
possible, the president's ambitious timeline for 
constitutional reform provides only minimal opportunity for 
international comment. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) In seeking to promote democratic development and 
strengthened respect for human rights, the embassy is working 
with the newly empowered Institute of Democracy and Human 
Rights, which is one of the government bodies most open to 
and cooperative with foreign donors.  We believe that this 
body, which has a director who clearly enjoys the trust of 
 
ASHGABAT 00000653  002 OF 006 
 
 
the president, can play a significant role.  In January, the 
Ministry of Foreign Affairs agreed to USAID's proposal for 
cooperation with the institute.  Areas for cooperationi 
include information exchange, the provision of legal and 
technical expertise, and support for increased access to 
information.  The institute has fully embraced USAID as a 
valued partner.  Together with the institute, USAID's 
partner, the International Center for Not-for-Profit Law, has 
laid out an ambitious plan for cooperation over the next 
year.  Other USAID partners have made or are preparing to 
make proposals based on feedback from the institute. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Although the president is making progress in 
overhauling Turkmenistan's laws, human rights practices 
continue to lag behind the president's intentions.  RFE/RL 
reporters continue to experience considerable harassment from 
security forces, including efforts to disrupt the wedding of 
one reporter's son.  Small evangelical Christian religious 
groups continue to experience problems with registration, and 
some unregistered groups have experienced harassment.  We 
have heard reports that some individuals are continuing to 
experience troubles with traveling abroad, including the 
daughter of an RFE/RL reporter who we previously had been 
told would be allowed to go overseas.  While the president 
last summer released Turkmenistan's former Grand Mufti, 
imprisoned since 2005 under charges of complicity in the 2002 
attack against former President Niyazov's motorcade, only a 
handful of other individuals who were also imprisoned for 
alleged involvement in the attack have been released. 
Despite these problems, the number of new cases -- and of 
individuals coming to the embassy seeking assistance with 
perceived human rights complaints -- is down sharply from 
previous years. 
 
MEDIA 
 
¶7.  (SBU) While most of Turkmenistan's media remains 
state-controlled, President Berdimuhamedov hasemphasized the 
need for reform, calling for more creativity and more 
international and political news to better inform readers and 
viewers.  Simultaneously, however, he has noted that a 
principal role for the media is to stimulate patriotism and 
support for reform efforts, and there is no official 
discussion of allowing independent media to develop.  Within 
this context, state media have shown gradually increasing 
openness, but still much uncertainty and a lack of capacity 
in attempting to fulfill the president's demands.  In 
particular, the Ministry of Culture and Broadcasting has 
asked specifically for U.S. experts and assistance to further 
develop Turkmenistan's news media.  This has led to 
unprecedented embassy access to and contact with state media, 
but also so far to only minimal improvements in 
newsgathering, editing and production techniques.  Both 
broadcast and print media have started to cover a wider range 
of topics, but would not even think of challenging or 
criticizing government policies.  These limits are a result 
of strict self-censorship -- no one wants to be the first to 
try an "unapproved" innovation.  We believe there remains 
potential for coaxing Turkmenistan's media further along the 
road of providing more and better information.  A next step 
in this regard could be continued and expanded partnerships 
with U.S. and other foreign media outlets. 
 
EDUCATION 
 
¶8.  (SBU) President Berdimuhamedov and his officials 
repeatedly emphasize that reforming the education sector has 
been one of their top priorities, and he has said to U.S. 
visitors the hardest task is to change the mentality of a 
people.  Standard schooling has returned to the ten 
year-model of the Soviet era from Niyazov's nine-year 
standard.  University education has returned to the previous 
standard of five years, instead of Niyazov's model of two 
years of study and two years of work.  Many new university 
 
ASHGABAT 00000653  003 OF 006 
 
 
buildings have been constructed or are under construction. 
The country is opening "state of the art" grade schools and 
secondary schools.  Recently the president announced that any 
new school construction project will only be considered 
completed when the building has full Internet access. 
 
¶9.  (SBU) And yet, to date, the president's (and 
government's) focus has been more on improving the shell than 
on reforming the core of the educational system.  While there 
has been little emphasis placed up to now on retraining 
teachers or on modernizing the curricula, there have been 
some clear signs, during recent visits of delegations from 
both Texas A&M and Chadron State College (Nebraska), that the 
government recognizes the links between human capacity and 
curricula and may be considering curricula changes for 
institutes of higher education.  In particular, the Minister 
of Education is eager to re-start a Texas A&M partnership 
that would reform Turkmenistan's sole business education 
program to American standards over the next 3-4 years (this 
project is being fine-tuned for review by the Government of 
Turkmenistan).  At lower levels, though, the system -- 
including some hard-core hold-outs like the infamous Nury 
Bayramov, the Ministry of Education's International Relations 
head -- continues to constrain individual initiative and 
block suggestions for improvements and reforms from reaching 
the Minister.  In particular, many return exchange 
participants are prevented or discouraged from returning to 
their places of work or study.  Despite these problems, there 
have been some murmurs of interest in a Bolashak-like program 
in which the government would provide scholarships to Turkmen 
students to attend U.S. universities. 
 
¶10.  (SBU) Action on U.S.-sponsored educational programs is 
focused in USAID and the embassy's Public Diplomacy section. 
More than 100 Turkmenistan citizens are participating in 2008 
in the embassy's FLEX (high-school), UGRAD (college-level), 
Turkmenistan AUCA Scholarship program (TASP), Teachers 
Excellence and Achievement (TEA), Muskie, Fulbright and 
Humphrey exchange programs.  Through its Quality Learning 
Program, USAID is seeking to support efforts to improve 
teaching and student assessment methodologies, increase 
teachers' participation in curriculum and education policy 
development, and promote development of transparent and 
efficient school finance and management systems.  Most 
recently, USAID has proposed two new programs:  1) to assist 
Turkmenistan to take part in the upcoming Trends in 
International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMMS), a 
rigorous study of student skills and knowledge in math and 
science that will help Turkmenistan to bring its education 
system in line with international best practice, and 2) in 
coordination with UNICEF, to improve secondary math, science 
and advanced literacy skills in UNICEF pilot schools.  USAID 
discussed these proposals with Minister of Education 
Annaamanov May 15, and is working on a formal proposal for 
both projects. 
 
TURKMENBASHY AMERICAN CORNER 
 
¶11.  (SBU) May 25 is the two-year anniversary of the closing 
of the Turkmenbashy American Corner.  Although the government 
has agreed that its re-opening should be part of the 
year-long review of cooperation, there has been no progress 
in re-opening the Center.  In urging action, you might stress 
that, without an American Corner, teachers, students and 
others in Balkan Province do not have the same access to 
educational advising that can assist them in applying to U.S. 
universities. 
 
FOREIGN POLICY 
 
¶12.  (SBU) Despite his statements that he plans to continue 
the "neutrality" policies of his predecessor, Berdimuhamedov 
has put an unprecedented emphasis on foreign affairs to 
repair Turkmenistan's international and regional relations 
 
ASHGABAT 00000653  004 OF 006 
 
 
and to become a respected player on the international stage. 
Under the president's leadership, Turkmenistan has reached 
out to participate actively in regional organizations.  He 
has met with all the leaders in the region, as well as with 
those of other countries of importance to Turkmenistan. 
China has a strong and growing commercial presence in 
Turkmenistan, and continues to court the president through a 
series of high-level commercial and political visits, 
including a July 2007 Berdimuhamedov trip to Beijing focused 
on natural gas and pipeline deals.  Presidents Berdimuhamedov 
and Gul (Turkey) have exchanged visits, but bilateral 
relations continue to be colored more by the image of 
Turkey's lucrative trade and construction contracts that are 
eating up large amounts of money from the national budget. 
Berdimuhamedov has held positive meetings with high-level 
leaders of international organizations (including both the UN 
and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) 
and IFIs that have led to productive, cooperative 
relationships.  The UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, 
Louise Arbour, visited Turkmenistan in May 2007, and the High 
Commissioner on Religion will visit in September. 
 
¶13.  (SBU) Berdimuhamedov has held positive meetings with 
high-level U.S. officials and is well-disposed toward the 
United States.  He made his first trip to the United States 
as president to participate in the UNGA session in September 
2007, where he also met with Secretary of State Rice.  In 
November 2007, Secretary of Energy Bodman met with 
Berdimuhamedov in Ashgabat, and Berdimuhamedov's meeting with 
President Bush during the April Bucharest NATO summit 
received extensive and very positive media coverage in 
Turkmenistan.  Berdimuhamedov made his first visit to EU and 
NATO headquarters in Brussels in November 2007. 
 
REGIONAL COOPERATION 
 
¶14.  (SBU) Accompanying the president's focus on reaching out 
to Turkmenistan's near and more distant neighbors has been an 
increased effort to participate in and cooperate with 
regional fora.  In part, this represents a recognition that 
Turkmenistan's interests in a number of areas -- including 
trade, energy, and combatting narcotics trafficking -- are 
not well-served by continuing President Niyazov's go-it-alone 
approach.  Over the last year, Turkmenistan has become an 
increasingly active player in a number of regional fora, 
including the (counter-narcotics) Central Asian Regional 
Information and Coordination Center, the Central Asian Trade 
Investment Framework Agreement mechanism (TIFA), and the 
European Union's Central Asian Troika process (Turkmenistan 
hosted the troika meeting and wanted to host TIFA). 
Cognizant of its neutral status, it has bolstered its 
previous participation in meetings of the Commonwealth of 
Independent States with participation -- but only as an 
observer -- in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and (in 
its status as a Partnership-for-Peace country) NATO. 
Turkmenistan is also participating in regional reconstruction 
efforts in Afghanistan, sponsoring a number of Afghan 
students at its universities and pedagogical institutes, and 
agreeing in early April to bolster by 2010 the electricity it 
is already selling to Turkmenistan by an additional 300 
Megawatts.  The president also agreed to extend the current 
price at which Turkmenistan is selling electricity to 
Afghanistan -- 2 cents per kilowatt hour -- to 2010. 
 
ECONOMY AND FINANCE 
 
¶15.  (SBU) President Berdimuhamedov has stated repeatedly, in 
many fora, that he wants to develop an international-standard 
market economy and to promote foreign investment.  To those 
ends, he has placed a new priority over the past eight months 
on promoting economic and financial reform.  Turkmenistan has 
announced that it will redenominate its currency in 2009, 
lopping off three zeros, and has already unified the 
country's dual exchange rates.  The president has stated that 
 
ASHGABAT 00000653  005 OF 006 
 
 
some state enterprises will be privatized -- though not in 
"strategic" sectors like oil and gas, electricity, textiles, 
construction, transportation, and communications.  He has 
signed a new foreign investment law, which, among other 
things, guarantees resident foreign businessmen and their 
families one-year, multi-entry visas, and approved changes to 
the tax code.  The president divided the overworked Ministry 
of Economy and Finance into two bodies -- a Ministry of 
Economy and Development, and a Ministry of Finance, and he 
has created a Supreme Auditing Chamber with the goal of 
providing transparency in the budget process.  In a notable 
development, the president also announced that he will 
abolish the opaque extrabudgetary funds that were prone under 
his predecessor to misuse and corruption.  Finally, the state 
has slowly begun to raise the price of electricity and price 
of vehicle fuel.  These measures could be part of an early 
effort to gradually phase out the state's extensive and 
tremendously expensive subsidies system. 
 
¶16.  (SBU) Even though the president has reshaped his 
bureaucracy, put in place the structures that theoretically 
should help promote a market economy, and opened Turkmenistan 
to cooperation with IFIs, the lack of basic understanding and 
bureaucratic capacity remains an enormous impediment to 
change.  New reforms are being rolled out with inadequate 
preparation, understanding of their consequences and 
explanation -- and are leading to increased public 
dissatisfaction.  USAID is working through its contractor, 
BearingPoint, to implement a new program to increase 
bureaucratic capacity and to support growth of private 
business in Turkmenistan.  Department of Treasury 
representatives will also visit Turkmenistan in June to 
identify areas where Treasury might play a role in promoting 
reform, should funding be available. 
 
ENERGY 
 
¶17.  (SBU) Turkmenistan has world-class natural gas reserves, 
but Russia's near monopoly of its energy exports has left 
Turkmenistan receiving much less than the world price and 
overly beholden to Russia, although Gazprom has agreed to pay 
"world price" starting in 2009.  Pipeline diversification, 
including both a pipeline to China proposed for 2009 and the 
possibility of resurrecting plans for Trans-Caspian and 
Trans-Afghanistan pipelines that would avoid the Russian 
routes, and construction of high-voltage electricity lines to 
transport excess energy to Turkmenistan's neighbors, 
including Afghanistan, would not only enhance Turkmenistan's 
economic and political sovereignty, but also help fuel new 
levels of prosperity throughout the region.  Berdimuhamedov 
has told U.S. interlocutors he recognizes the need for more 
options and has taken the first steps to this end, but he 
also took the steps needed to increase the volume of gas 
exports to Russia, signing an agreement (with Russia and 
Kazakhstan) in Moscow in December 2007 to enlarge and rebuild 
a non-functioning Soviet-era Caspian littoral pipeline.  To 
date, little progress has been publicized on this project. 
He will require encouragement and assistance from the 
international community if he is to maintain a course of 
diversification in the face of ongoing Russian efforts to 
keep Turkmenistan from weaning itself away from Russia. 
 
¶18.  (SBU) One of the biggest challenges that Turkmenistan's 
hydrocarbon sector will have to face, if it is to succeed in 
pipeline diversification, is the need for increased 
natural-gas production.  Turkmenistan produced a reported 
72.3 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2007, a figure that barely 
meets its existing domestic needs and export commitments. 
The president directed that production should increase to 
81.5 bcm in 2008.  Even larger increases will be needed as/if 
new pipelines come online.  While Turkmenistan has welcomed 
foreign companies to work its offshore (primarily oil) 
Caspian blocks, it has up to now largely rejected allowing 
foreign energy companies to work its onshore gas fields, 
 
ASHGABAT 00000653  006 OF 006 
 
 
maintaining that it can handle the drilling itself.  But 
onshore natural gas production offers some tough challenges, 
including ultra-deep, high-pressure, high-sulphur, sub-salt 
drilling, which requires special skills and technologies and 
massive investment.  One Western analyst suggested that costs 
could run as high as $100 billion over the next five years. 
No one outside of the Turkmen government believes 
Turkmenistan has either the skills or the financial resources 
needed.  U.S. policy has been to promote onshore production 
by major Western oil companies.  We know there has been 
strong debate within the government about this, and we have 
watched views evolve.  We believe, in the end, there will be 
major Western companies working onshore -- but we aren't 
there yet. 
 
SECURITY 
 
¶19.  (SBU) The U.S. security relationship with Turkmenistan 
continues to unfold, with slow but consistent cooperation. 
Although basing is not an option, Turkmenistan remains an 
important conduit for the U.S. military to Afghanistan. 
Maintaining blanket overflight permission and the military 
refueling operation at Ashgabat Airport remains a key U.S. 
goal.  CENTCOM and Turkmenistan's military maintain an active 
military-to-military cooperation plan, and CENTCOM and the 
Nevada National Guard (operating through the State 
Partnership Program and CENTCOM's military cooperation 
program) have a productive counter-narcotics program that has 
funded training and completion of two border-crossing 
stations on the Iranian and Afghan borders and the 
construction of three more checkpoints, including one 
currently underway on the Uzbekistan border.  With the 
assistance of the Embassy's EXBS program, the Embassy works 
to strengthen Turkmenistan's border security and to increase 
its ability to interdict smuggling of weapons of mass 
destruction. 
 
COUNTER-NARCOTICS COOPERATION 
 
¶20.  (SBU) Berdimuhamedov's efforts to distance himself 
gradually from Niyazov's "Golden Age," we-have-no-problems 
rhetoric have led him to acknowledge publicly that 
Turkmenistan has serious problems with narcotics trafficking 
and addiction, primarily opiates from Afghanistan.  In 
January 2008, he established and funded a new DEA-like State 
Counter-Narcotics Service that will be responsible for both 
interdiction and demand-reduction efforts, and he put in 
charge an activist official, Murat Islamov, that the 
international donor community both respects and trusts. 
While Islamov already has a headquarters building, he is 
literally building his new service from the ground up. 
During a meeting with embassy officers in April, he welcomed 
whatever training and equipment the United States can 
provide.  With a promised infusion of $20 million in CENTCOM 
counter-narcotics funds in FY 2009 and the possibility of a 
similar amount in 2010, the embassy country team is now 
discussing how the United States can most effectively respond 
to Islamov's request. 
HOAGLAND