VZCZCXRO4861
PP RUEHAG RUEHAST RUEHBI RUEHCI RUEHDF RUEHIK RUEHLH RUEHLN RUEHLZ
RUEHNEH RUEHPW RUEHROV RUEHSK RUEHSR RUEHVK RUEHYG
DE RUEHAH #0194 0371310
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 061310Z FEB 09
FM AMEMBASSY ASHGABAT
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 2280
INFO RUCNCLS/ALL SOUTH AND CENTRAL ASIA COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUCNCIS/CIS COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUCNMEM/EU MEMBER STATES COLLECTIVE PRIORITY
RUEHAK/AMEMBASSY ANKARA PRIORITY 4806
RUEHBJ/AMEMBASSY BEIJING PRIORITY 2589
RUEHKO/AMEMBASSY TOKYO PRIORITY 2454
RUEHIT/AMCONSUL ISTANBUL PRIORITY 3050
RHMFIUU/CDR USCENTCOM MACDILL AFB FL PRIORITY
RUCPDOC/DEPT OF COMMERCE WASHDC PRIORITY
RHEBAAA/DEPT OF ENERGY WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEATRS/DEPT OF TREASURY WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEHBS/USEU BRUSSELS PRIORITY
RHEHNSC/NSC WASHDC PRIORITY
RHEFDIA/DIA WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEAIIA/CIA WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/JOINT STAFF WASHDC PRIORITY
RUEKJCS/SECDEF WASHDC PRIORITY

UNCLAS ASHGABAT 000194 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
SCA/CEN; EEB 
PLEASE PASS TO USTDA DAN STEIN 
ENERGY FOR EKIMOFF/THOMPSON 
COMMERCE FOR HUEPER 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PGOV EINV EPET TX AF IN PK
SUBJECT: TURKMENISTAN: ENERGY OFFICIALS LEAVE US GUESSING 
ON THE STATUS OF TAPI TALKS 
 
¶1.  (SBU)  Poloff met on February 5 with Deputy Minister for 
Oil and Gas Industry and Mineral Resources Nedirov and 
officials from the Turkmen State Gas Concern to discuss the 
status of talks and agreements on development of a 
Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline. 
Turkmen officials confirmed that no multi-lateral meetings 
have taken place since September 2008, and did not know when 
the parties would meet again.  Nedirov, who initially said 
the agreement was with the Cabinet of Ministers, then changed 
his answer and said his ministry and Turkmengaz are still 
reviewing the Heads of Agreement, which contains changes that 
include India's formal participation in the project.  He 
expressed optimism that the agreement would be approved at 
the ministerial level and be passed to the Cabinet of 
Ministers "soon". 
 
¶2.  (SBU)  He said the sales and purchase agreement is also 
still under review in his Ministry, and would offer no 
timeline regarding when the document might move forward.  He 
said the gas and pricing agreement had two parts--a 
multi-party element that provided a general purchasing 
framework, and a second element providing for Turkmenistan to 
negotiate pricing bilaterally with each of the other parties. 
 He did not identify which portions of the agreement needed 
work. 
 
¶3.  (SBU)  COMMENT:  Nedirov and the unidentified Turkmengaz 
officials did not seem to be on the same sheet of music 
throughout the meeting, and all of them appeared to be 
nonplussed by the arrangement by the MFA of this meeting with 
one Embassy officer.   The MFA may have told them very little 
regarding the who and what of post's request for a meeting. 
In the course of the meeting, Nedirov seemed uninformed and 
often confused, and frequently entered into discussion with 
the others in Turkmen, either seeking to confirm, clarify, or 
correct his own information.  He seemed to be unaware of the 
status and present location of the documents that were 
central to the purpose of the meeting, and was reluctant to 
reveal what issues or concerns were at the center of the 
apparent decision to put the documents into extended review. 
He was wholly unwilling to comment in any way on issues or 
questions related to any of the other TAPI partners, which 
made it impossible to discern what specific issues were 
holding up the process.  Given Nedirov's performance at this 
meeting, it appears the Turkmen government is not focusing at 
all on helping this process move forward, and its inability 
to work through the concern it has about the agreements in 
the past four months makes it difficult to guess when the 
next working group meeting, or any progress in general, will 
take place.  END COMMENT. 
MILES