Turkmenistan: US Airbase Deal 'Not Discussed'
Turkmenistan: US Airbase Deal 'Not Discussed'
Despite media reports that the United States might be about to acquire the use of an airbase in southeast Turkmenistan, NBCentralAsia observers believe the issue is not yet on the agenda for the government in Ashgabat.
International forces operating in Afghanistan have been seeking to secure land and air routes into the country from the north, and in February, the Turkmen authorities announced that non-lethal freight would be allowed to travel through the country to the Afghan border.
Reports that a deal concerning airfield facilities at Mary was on the cards surfaced earlier in July, around the time that a United States government delegation led by William Burns, Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs, visited Ashgabat.
The day after his July 10 meeting with President Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov, Burns told reporters that his talks had included discussion of “our common concerns about stability in Afghanistan and what we both can do to contribute to progress there”.
Quoting the US Defence Department, the news site Eurasianet reported in July that a small team of American servicemen was stationed in Ashgabat to help US planes carrying humanitarian cargo in transit to Afghanistan refuel at the capital’s airport.
Asked about this agreement, Burns said merely that his talks with Berdymuhammedov covered areas in which Turkmenistan was assisting its southern neighbour.
An anonymous source in the Turkmen government said the US official and President Berdymuhammedov discussed arrangements under which planes can refuel at Ashgabat airport.
But as for the possibility of using Mary as well, the Turkmen government source said “this issue was not raised…. There have been no discussions on this matter yet.”
The Mary airbase was built for the Soviet air force in the Sixties, and recommissioning work was completed by contractors from the United Arab Emirates in 2006.
A source in the Turkmen defence ministry says the authorities were still far from reaching any decision on leasing the base out to NATO forces.
“They have not yet assessed all of the risks this would entail for relations with Moscow, which would be angered by this,” he said, adding that even if a deal was done, the government was unlikely to allow military items to transit the base.
Vyacheslav Mamedov, who heads the Civil Democratic Union, a Turkmen émigré group based in the Netherlands, believes the airbase question has in any case been overtaken by events.
At a July 6 press conference in the Kremlin, visiting US president Barack Obama and his Russian host Dmitry Medvedev announced that American military transport planes would be allowed to fly over Russia’s airspace to support the Afghan operation.
Unlike the previous arrangement where non-lethal items were allowed to cross Russian territory by train, the new deal permits the Americans to transport weapons, troops and army vehicles.
Under-Secretary of State Burns signed the agreement on his country’s behalf.
In Mamedov’s view, there will be little need for long-range planes to stop off in Turkmenistan a few hundred kilometers from their destination.
(NBCentralAsia is an IWPR-funded project to create a multilingual news analysis and comment service for Central Asia, drawing on the expertise of a broad range of political observers across the region. The project ran from August 2006 to September 2007, covering all five regional states. With new funding, the service has resumed, covering Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.)
International forces operating in Afghanistan have been seeking to secure land and air routes into the country from the north, and in February, the Turkmen authorities announced that non-lethal freight would be allowed to travel through the country to the Afghan border.
Reports that a deal concerning airfield facilities at Mary was on the cards surfaced earlier in July, around the time that a United States government delegation led by William Burns, Under-Secretary of State for Political Affairs, visited Ashgabat.
The day after his July 10 meeting with President Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov, Burns told reporters that his talks had included discussion of “our common concerns about stability in Afghanistan and what we both can do to contribute to progress there”.
Quoting the US Defence Department, the news site Eurasianet reported in July that a small team of American servicemen was stationed in Ashgabat to help US planes carrying humanitarian cargo in transit to Afghanistan refuel at the capital’s airport.
Asked about this agreement, Burns said merely that his talks with Berdymuhammedov covered areas in which Turkmenistan was assisting its southern neighbour.
An anonymous source in the Turkmen government said the US official and President Berdymuhammedov discussed arrangements under which planes can refuel at Ashgabat airport.
But as for the possibility of using Mary as well, the Turkmen government source said “this issue was not raised…. There have been no discussions on this matter yet.”
The Mary airbase was built for the Soviet air force in the Sixties, and recommissioning work was completed by contractors from the United Arab Emirates in 2006.
A source in the Turkmen defence ministry says the authorities were still far from reaching any decision on leasing the base out to NATO forces.
“They have not yet assessed all of the risks this would entail for relations with Moscow, which would be angered by this,” he said, adding that even if a deal was done, the government was unlikely to allow military items to transit the base.
Vyacheslav Mamedov, who heads the Civil Democratic Union, a Turkmen émigré group based in the Netherlands, believes the airbase question has in any case been overtaken by events.
At a July 6 press conference in the Kremlin, visiting US president Barack Obama and his Russian host Dmitry Medvedev announced that American military transport planes would be allowed to fly over Russia’s airspace to support the Afghan operation.
Unlike the previous arrangement where non-lethal items were allowed to cross Russian territory by train, the new deal permits the Americans to transport weapons, troops and army vehicles.
Under-Secretary of State Burns signed the agreement on his country’s behalf.
In Mamedov’s view, there will be little need for long-range planes to stop off in Turkmenistan a few hundred kilometers from their destination.
(NBCentralAsia is an IWPR-funded project to create a multilingual news analysis and comment service for Central Asia, drawing on the expertise of a broad range of political observers across the region. The project ran from August 2006 to September 2007, covering all five regional states. With new funding, the service has resumed, covering Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.)
