INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Azhdar KURTOV

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Azhdar Kurtov, President, Moscow Public Law Research Center (Moscow, Russia)

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On the eve of 2006, the country’s president, Saparmurat Niyazov, announced that the republic had diplomatic relations with 122 world states and was a member of 39 international organizations. On the whole, 2006 was a year when several leading world powers showed greater interest in Turkmenistan. Russia still occupies a dominating position in the country’s foreign economic relations, but Ukraine, the country’s second CIS partner, has lost a significant amount of ground. On the other hand, China is gradually becoming more active, while the U.S., EU, and Iran continue their efforts to draw their own benefits from economic contacts with the republic.

Kiev stepped up its diplomatic gas activity after Ashghabad signed an agreement on 29 December, 2005 with Russia’s Gazprom company on the delivery of 30 bcm of natural gas to Russia in 2006 at $65 per 1,000 cu m. This was when the conflict involving gas deliveries from Russia to Europe through Ukraine became aggravated. Kiev siphoned off large volumes of gas for its own needs without sanctioned permission. The prospects of it acquiring Turkmen gas proved even more illusive, since the last Turkmen-Russian agreement envisaged the delivery of 15 bcm of blue fuel in the first quarter of 2006, which, taking into account the throughput capacity of the main Central Asia-Center pipeline, made any other deliveries of Turkmen gas to Ukraine essentially impossible.

As early as 2 January, Head of the Naftogaz Ukrainy National Joint-Stock company A. Ivchenko visited Turkmenistan and tried once more to……………

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