{"id":214,"date":"2006-12-21T11:00:43","date_gmt":"2006-12-21T16:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=214"},"modified":"2007-02-27T22:03:44","modified_gmt":"2007-02-28T03:03:44","slug":"turkmenbashi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/?p=214","title":{"rendered":"Turkmenbashi"},"content":{"rendered":"

Saparmurat Niyazov, the President of Turkmenistan, is dead<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Turkmenistan<\/a>–a Caspian Sea country which contains either the fourth or fifth largest natural gas reserves in the world and considerable oil reserves, as well–is a central site in the “Great Game” of inter-imperialist rivalry being waged between dominant forces within the US and Russia<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

And if you care about US policy toward Iran, then the larger context of US-Turkmenistan relations might be of interest.<\/p>\n

The gossip side of the news is simple. Niyazov was a nutty authoritarian dictator. The Times Online<\/a><\/em> reports:<\/p>\n

Saparmurat Niyazov, the colourful but authoritarian President of \tTurkmenistan, has died suddenly after 21 years of iron-fist rule which \tcrushed his opposition and created a cult of personality that saw cities and \teven a meteorite named after him.<\/p>\n

Mr Niyazov, who made himself President-for-life in 1999, died early today of \ta heart attack aged 66, according to a statement by the state-controlled \tmedia…<\/p>\n

During his rule – extended in an unopposed presidential election in 1990 – \the established a bizarre personality cult in which he was styled as \tTurkmenbashi the Great, or Leader of all Turkmens.<\/p>\n

Obsessed with maintaining personal power, he ensured his presence was felt \tin every corner, commissioning thousands of hoardings and gold statues of \thimself across the country, as well as plastering his image on the national \tcurrency, carpets, vodka bottles and launching his own brand of perfume.<\/p>\n

In a symbolic show of his unrestrained authority, the former Soviet leader \talso renamed the months and days of the week, titling January after himself \t– Turkmenbashi. His name has been given to a sea port, farms, military units \tand even to a meteorite.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

From the perspective of Great Power Rivalry, however, the key question, is whether he was “our” nutty authoritarian.<\/p>\n

Turkmenistan and Iran<\/strong><\/p>\n

Throughout much of the 1990s, the US worked very hard to win Niyazov away from Russian influence.<\/p>\n

At first glance, this seemed easy enough. In 1997 Royal Dutch\/Shell and Niyazov joined in a partnership to build a pipeline that would avoid Russia by carrying gas through northern Iran (“Shell to construct pipeline through Iran,” The Jerusalem Post<\/em>, October 14, 1997, p. 10):<\/p>\n

The Shell group… has responded to an invitation from the Turkmeni \tpresident and has agreed to be the lead party in trying to finance and \tmanage the project, said a Shell spokesman in London.<\/p>\n

The company believes it won’t run into opposition from Washington…<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But Shell did run into opposition from Washington.<\/p>\n

Turkmenistan, Iran, and Russia<\/strong><\/p>\n

The October 14, 1997 Jerusalem Post<\/em> article reported a potential source of the trouble:<\/p>\n

[T]he Turkmeni government has expressed its concern at Russia-based \tGazprom’s decision to join Total SA in a $2b contract to develop the South \tPars gas field in Iran. The Turkmenis fear the contract could prevent it \tfrom exporting gas reserves to Turkey.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Russian partnerships in Iran would, in fact, doom the Shell pipeline. The Boston Globe <\/em>reported the story (“US warns against pipeline going through Iran, but few listen,” March 1, 1998, p.A12):<\/p>\n

No one has welcomed the US policy promoting independence from Russia more \tthan Turkmenistan…<\/p>\n

Shell officials say they are wary of the US Iran-Libya Sanctions Act, \tdesigned to punish any company that invests more than $ 20 million in Iran. \tBut they also express hope that Washington will soon abandon its efforts to \texclude Iran from the Central Asian bonanza…<\/p>\n

So do the Turkmens, who spent seven decades as a southern Soviet outpost \twith their 600-mile-long border with Iran shut tight. They are not about to \tlet someone else tell them to close it again.<\/p>\n

“I understand that the US has its interests as a superpower, but we have \tour interests<\/strong>, and we have to feed our people,” Yolbaz Kepbanov, \tTurkmenistan’s deputy foreign minister for economic affairs, said in the \tcapital, Ashkabhad…<\/p>\n

Perhaps in the spirit of supporting such independence, when the \tIran-Turkmenistan pipeline was announced last July, Washington seemed \ttacitly to accept the deal<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

But the number and scale of the projects involving Iran have increased<\/strong>… \tGazprom is planning to develop<\/strong>, along with French and Malaysian \tcompanies, a gas field in southern Iran<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

As a result, Washington has restated its hard line<\/strong>. “US policy is to \toppose all pipelines across Iran,” said a Western diplomat in Ashkhabad. “The \tTurkmens know the light is red, believe me<\/strong>.” But while Turkmen officials \tare aware of the US position, they say they are not bothered by it.<\/p>\n

“Let the Americans say, ‘Don’t be friends with Iran,’ but we can’t do that, \tbecause we are a neutral country,” said Kepbanov, the Foreign Ministry \tofficial. “In our eyes, everyone is equal but Iran comes first. . . . We \thave to cooperate with them.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The Israeli Connection<\/strong><\/p>\n

The US offered up an alternative–a pipeline under the Caspian Sea that would travel through Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Turkey, skirting both Russia and Iran.<\/p>\n

This so-called “TransCaspian” alternative was actively promoted by an Israeli with very close relations to the regime in Turkmenistan. The Wall Street Journal<\/em> covered the Israeli angle (“Israeli Is Subtle Player in Central Asia Oil–Ex-Intelligence Agent Advances Western Interests,” April 7, 1999):<\/p>\n

A former Israeli intelligence agent… 53-year-old Yosef A. Maiman \tpossesses probably the one key to success in the region: the ear of one of \tits autocratic leaders. For the past few years, Mr. Maiman has served as the \tright-hand man on energy matters to President Saparmurat Niyazov of \tTurkmenistan, home to the world’s third-largest natural-gas reserves.<\/p>\n

In this role, Mr. Maiman has wittingly or unwittingly furthered the \tgeopolitical goals of both the U.S. and Israel. How? By nudging the Turkmen \tleader to bypass Russia and Iran in building the country’s main gas-export \tpipeline.<\/p>\n

The race to find a market for Turkmen gas, and a way to get it there, has \tpicked up great speed of late. Mr. Maiman was the behind-the-scenes \tplayer in the $2.5 billion agreement that Mr. Niyazov signed in February \twith PSG International<\/strong> to build an export pipeline between Turkmenistan \tand Turkey. PSG is a joint venture between Bechtel Enterprises<\/strong>, a \tunit of Bechtel Group Inc., and General Electric Co.’s finance arm, GE \tCapital Services. Mr. Maiman acted as the intermediary between the Turkmenis \tand the U.S. firms.<\/p>\n

The contract represents a victory for the U.S. The companies involved are \tboth American. And for Washington, the pipeline deal freezes out Russia and \tIran, which Mr. Niyazov had been reluctant to challenge. Russia and Iran \tquickly denounced the project. In early February, Russian gas monopoly RAO \tGazprom teamed up with Italy’s ENI SpA and Dutch financial backer ABN-Amro \tHolding NV to build a competing gas pipeline across the Black Sea from \tRussia to Turkey…<\/p>\n

“This is the Great Game all over<\/strong>,” Mr. Maiman says during an \tinterview in his office in Herzliyah, an Israeli resort town, referring to a \tlate 19th century, three-way contest for control of Central Asia. “Controlling \tthe transport route is controlling the product<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

Israel’s security interests in the region have been furthered, as well. “Maiman \tis the Israeli-Turkmenistan relationship,” says Shmuel Meron, the Israeli \tForeign Ministry’s director of Commonwealth of Independent States affairs. \t“He is our ambassador at large. He opens doors and understands the rules of \tthe game.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For a time, Niyazov seemed to be playing along.<\/p>\n

During the US Presidential transition in November 2000, however, the Russians managed to flip Niyazov.<\/p>\n

Turkmentistan: “A Lost Cause”<\/strong><\/p>\n

James Dorsey reported (“US Blues as Turkmenistan Opts for Russian Route,” The Scotsman<\/em>, November 15, 2000, p.10):<\/p>\n

Turkmenistan’s President Saparmurat Niyazov appears to have sounded the \tdeath knell for US-backed efforts to ensure that Caspian Sea gas is exported \tto world markets via Turkey rather than Russia.<\/p>\n

Mr Niyazov has announced that he has reached agreement with Russian gas \tmonopoly Gazprom to sell it up to 30 billion cubic metres of gas next year. \t“If everything works out, we shall have an agreement by mid-November,” he \ttold the cabinet.<\/p>\n

The deal would account for most of Turkmenistan’s gas exports and leave \tlittle over for a $ 2 billion, United States-backed TransCaspian pipeline<\/strong> \twhich would have been built from the Central Asian state via Azerbaijan and \tGeorgia to Turkey by a consortium involving the Royal Dutch\/Shell Group and \ta US contractor, Bechtel.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

According to a May 2006 report in the Financial Times<\/em> (“Scramble to Grab central Asia’s Gas,” May 5, 2006, p.3, third-party on-link here<\/a>):<\/p>\n

Lengthy negotiations of a scheme to pipe gas from Turkmenistan across the \tCaspian to Azerbaijan broke down in the 1990s mainly because Saparmurat \tNiyazov, the authoritarian Turkmen leader, kept changing the terms. US \tenergy officials now regard Turkmenistan,<\/strong> the central Asian republic \twith the biggest gas reserves, as <\/strong>“a lost cause<\/strong>“.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A Massive Fight For Power<\/strong><\/p>\n

Will the sudden death of Niyazov allow US officials to salvage this “lost cause”?<\/p>\n

As Reuters<\/a> reports, the Russians are understandably content with the status quo and the incumbent regime:<\/p>\n

Russia<\/span> said it hoped \tTurkmenistan would stick to Niyazov’s course. “We count on the new \tTurkmenistan leaders continuing their course and further developing \tbilateral ties,” top Kremlin aide Sergei Prikhodko told Itar-Tass news \tagency.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The onus for regime “change” is on the US. Another Reuters<\/a> report suggests a likely scenario:<\/p>\n

“I expect there will be a massive fight for power now in Turkmenistan<\/strong> \tand it’s likely to take place between pro-U.S. and pro-Russian forces<\/strong>,” \tsaid a Russian gas industry source, who declined to be named. “Gas will \tbecome the main coin of exchange and the key asset to get hold of.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

For starters, one might learn the name of a key “political prisoner” in Turkmenistan: former Boris Shikhmuradov (also Boris Sheikhmuradov).<\/p>\n

Shikhmuradov, former Turkmeni Foreign Minister, was arrested in connection with an alleged 2002 assassination attempt on Niyazov.<\/p>\n

Among other things, Shikhmuradov has had good relations with Israel, having visited at the invitation of Yosef A. Maiman to discuss the sale of Turkkmeni natural gas to Israel (“Shell to construct pipeline through Iran,” The Jerusalem Post<\/em>, October 14, 1997, p. 10).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saparmurat Niyazov, the President of Turkmenistan, is dead. Turkmenistan–a Caspian Sea country which contains either the fourth or fifth largest natural gas reserves in the world and considerable oil reserves, as well–is a central site in the “Great Game” of inter-imperialist rivalry being waged between dominant forces within the US and Russia. And if you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[25,6,23,24],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/214\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/profcutler.com\/wordpress_blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}