The OSI Turkmenistan News Brief features a digest of the week's news from a spectrum of sources, with an analysis of recent developments. It is distributed free of charge every Friday in English and Russian. Subscribe or unsubscribe to the Turkmenistan News Brief using the email entry box located on the left of this page.

Read this week's analysis directly below, or download the complete issue as a pdf in English or Russian.

Analysis

Anticipating his visit to Ashgabat next week, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev telephoned Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov to convey birthday wishes. The Turkmen president was traveling in Naberezhnye Chelny at the time, on a significant state visit abroad to Russia's autonomous republic of Tatarstan, with which Turkmenistan has built a strategic relationship based on shared culture, religion and geographic proximity. Turkmenistan and Tatarstan signed a bilateral agreement on economic, technical, scientific and cultural cooperation. Tatarstan's Kazan State University awarded President Berdymukhamedov an honorary doctorate, in recognition of his promotion of education and science, and of his achievements in "democratic development and international cooperation."

Back in Ashgabat, President Berdymukhamedov received Gazprom's CEO Aleksei Miller, who had been rebuffed earlier this month, but no conclusion was reached on Turkmenistan's price to export natural gas to Russia. The Turkmen president also received the heads of Gazprom's competitors, Lukoil and Itera. President Berdymukhamedov also met with outgoing US Charge d'Affaires Richard Hoagland, who is finishing his tour of duty in Turkmenistan.

Turkmenistan continues to co-host high-profile workshops on democracy, the rule of law, and transition to market economy with the OSCE, the UN or individual Western governments. This week, Germany's Agency for Technical Co-Operation funded a seminar for lawyers to study bar associations and the role of trial attorneys, but as with other such meetings, only the Presidentially-controlled Institute for State and Law and National Institute for Democracy and Human Rights and various Turkmen ministry officials participated, as independent bar associations and unregistered NGOs are not recognized, and those interested in forming such groups are often discouraged from doing so.

Nevertheless, the EU continues to remain optimistic about possible human rights reforms in Turkmenistan. Riina Kionka, Javier Solana's personal representative on human rights, told RFE/RL that increased engagement with Turkmenistan encompasses both energy and human rights "as a package deal", and that the EU would continue to pursue human rights talks alongside cooperation on energy security, viewing the topics as "inseparable". "It's only through connections, business interests, commercial interests, that the EU is in a position to talk to Turkmenistan about human rights. If we just go on a vacuum, so to speak, about these issues, then we don't have much leverage," she explained.

Human rights groups such as Reporters Without Borders and Amnesty International were more forceful this week and perhaps less optimistic, demanding the release of jailed RFE/RL commentator Sazak Durdymuradov, who has reportedly been beaten and treated with electric shock in a remote psychiatric clinic in Turkmenistan notorious for the harsh treatment of dissidents. A U.S. State Department spokesperson noted that Washington was "deeply troubled" by the detention, which was characterized as "unacceptable". The Russian journalist Arkady Dubnov, a columnist from the Vremya Novosti newspaper and veteran correspondent and expert on Central Asia, was denied a visa to Turkmenistan to cover the Russian president's visit next week.

The restoration of the old Gregorian calendar names for the months of the year this week, which past dictator Saparmurat Niyazov whimsically renamed after Turkmen heroes and himself in 2002, seemed to indicate Turkmenistan's slow reversal of the cult of personality that characterized his regime. However, a high-profile ceremony for President Berdymukhamedov's birthday this week, in which an opulent park in Ashgabat with 27 fountains and statues of historical leader Oguz Khan and his sons, suggests that the tradition of a presidential cult of personality may linger.

Digest

Many of the primary news and information sources that inform the above analysis are noted (with weblinks) in Part 2 of the Turkmenistan News Brief, available for download below. This week's digest includes the following:

1.     International Relations
a.  President Berdymukhamedov Receives Gazprom Deputy Chairman Aleksei Miller
b. EU Official Optimistic About Turkmen Rights Situation, Despite Setbacks
c.  International Rights Groups, U.S. State Department Condemn Reporter's Arrest
d.  Russian President Greets Turkmen Leader on His Birthday
e. President of Turkmenistan Receives Outgoing US Charge d'Affaires To Turkmenistan
f.  President Berdymukhamedov Visits Tatarstan
g.  OSCE Centre Holds Workshop on Market Competition and Consumer Policy in Turkmenistan
h.  Seminar on Role of the Bar Held in Ashgabat with German Experts
i.  Paris Pact Initiative to Fight Illegal Drugs Convenes in Ashgabat
j.  Vremya Novostei Columnist Denied Entry to Turkmenistan

2.    Domestic Developments  
a.  RFE/RL Commentator Held in Notorious Psychiatric Clinic
b.  Monument to Oguz Khan Opened in Ashgabat

3.  Economic News
a.  New Gas and Oil Gushers in the Karakum Desert