US And Russia Vie For Influence In Energy-Rich Turkmenistan

Authored by EurasiaNet via OilPrice.com,

• Turkmenistan has recently experienced a significant increase in diplomatic attention from both the United States and Russia, suggesting an intensifying geopolitical struggle for influence in the Central Asian nation.

• Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov visited Ashgabat to strengthen economic, cultural, and political ties, while US Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau held separate phone conversations with the Turkmen Foreign Minister to discuss cooperation and expanding economic ties.

• Moscow appears concerned by Washington’s growing engagement with Turkmenistan, with Russian media even speculating that a new airport in Jebel could serve American military interests.

Turkmenistan has attracted lots of diplomatic attention this week from both the United States and Russia. The flurry of activity suggests geopolitical jostling is intensifying over the Central Asian state, apparently catalyzed by the recent Iranian-Israeli conflict. 

Turkmen Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov capped a hectic week with a June 26 phone call with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, the Trend news agency reported, adding that the topic of Iran’s clash with Israel came up during the discussion.

The two had also met in person in Ashgabat three days prior.

On June 25, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov concluded a two-day visit to the Turkmen capital Ashgabat. Bilateral economic ties topped the Russian agenda, but it also appeared that the Kremlin is keen to retain its cultural and political influence in the country.

In a speech in Ashgabat, for example, Lavrov announced plans to open a Russian-TurkmenUniversity.

“We pay great attention to youth exchanges. We propose to expand productive interaction,” Lavrov said, according to a transcript released by the Russian Foreign Ministry. He added that Russia intends “to develop ties between young international relations specialists of the two countries with the assistance of the Council of Young Diplomats of our Foreign Ministry.”

Lavrov offered a contradictory view of the United States in his speech, condemning the Trump administration’s bombing of Iranian nuclear facilities while later commending it for demonstrating “realism and common sense,” as opposed to the previous Biden administration’s “conceptual vision of world development that was completely absorbed by its neoliberal hegemonic plans.”

The day of Lavrov’s arrival in Ashgabat, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio held a telephone conversation with Meredov, a noteworthy development considering only about 48 hours before that Deputy Secretary of State Christopher Landau had a chat with the Turkmen foreign minister. 

Ostensibly, Rubio thanked the Turkmen government for allowing US citizens to leave Iran via Turkmenistan during the Iranian-Israeli conflict. But a State Department summary of the conversation also noted that the United States “looks forward to further partnership with Turkmenistan, including expanding economic and commercial ties.”

Turkmenistan over the past year has taken tentative steps to open up trade connections with the West, underscored by the launch in March of a first-ever swap deal involving Turkey and Iran facilitating the export natural gas to the European Union.

It seems clear that officials in Moscow are unnerved that Washington seems to be making inroads with the energy-rich country sitting on Iran’s northern border. An analysis article published June 23 by Nezavisimaya Gazeta noted that an airport with a long runway opened in May in the remote Turkmen town of Jebel not far from the Caspian Sea, hinting that the facility may prove useful to the American military. 

“The location of the airport, built on the site of a former military airfield of the USSR, with a runway of 3,200 meters and full navigational infrastructure, is quite suitable … as a staging base or for emergency landings of military aircraft during operations against a nearby country,” the commentary stated.