Turkmenistan: Excesses of the regime’s extended family funded by nation’s dwindling wealth

Turkmenistan sits by dint of pure kismet atop vast seams of hydrocarbon wealth, much of which has been squandered by the two dictators its citizens' have had the misfortune to be ruled by since seceding from the Soviet Union nearly three decades ago. Today, its people might as well be living in impoverished Yemen, a…

Turkmenistan: Berdymukhamedow to celebrate independence – from which few have benefited more than he

All appearances would suggest that Turkmenistan president Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedow continues to refuse to allow trifling humanitarian issues within the former Soviet republic of Central Asia to distract his focus from the real issues at hand. Kismet has decreed that Turkmenistan sits atop untold Hydrocarbon wealth which many of its 'stan' neighbours can only dream. And…

Turkmenistan: A population size at odds with a reality that’s in short supply

The size of the current population residing within Turkmenistan is once more being hotly debated, with the next countrywide census slated for a somewhat distant 2022. Strangely, the country is already being readied for the event, with perhaps such an ample length of time allowing for President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedow to get his excuses in early,…

Turkmenistan: A hollow facade of neutrality in a country at odds with its own people

It is unclear if Armenian president Armen Sarkissian is completely ignorant of the ruinous cul-de-sac down which President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedow is taking Turkmenistan, or if the content of a recent letter to his despotic counterpart to mark the annual Day of Neutrality was intended to be so ironic that it veered towards black comedy. Intending…

Turkmenistan and North Korea: Autocratic regimes rely on opacity and agendas to oppress citizens and bamboozle those on the outside

Once again we visit Turkmenistan, the land of irony, where truth and fiction become entwined to a point where there can be little to differentiate these polar opposites. Every bad guy needs a patsy, someone who will take the rap when merely following orders - usually on the pain of death, imprisonment or some other…

Turkmenistan: Cop out that once more fudges the real issues affecting an oppressed nation

The cliched image of a 'fat cop' more au fait with bribery and corruption than a consistent and just delivery of the rule of law is synonymous with countries whose regimes provide the inspiration for their police force, both in terms of an amoral modus operandi and in physical appearance that can often mirror the…

Turkmenistan: Why are German companies all too eager to overlook the Human Rights abuses committed by the Berdymukhamedow regime?

Call it a love affair, an obsession with, or a shameless dash for cash while there is still some at the country's disposal, Germany's interest in Turkmenistan, a country in the iron grip of a dictator seemingly hell-bent on emulating the Kim dynasty's template for running North Korea, shows little sign of waning. At first…

Turkmenistan: President Berdymukhamedow Continues to Have a Gas as the Country Craters

Footage of Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedow not allowing the tedious everyday affairs of state to get in the way of his hobbies are nothing new. Recent dramatic publicity shots of the former dentist putting a rally car through its paces close to the Darvaza gas crater were though unintentionally couched with metaphors aplenty, the most…

Turkmenistan: Rumours of its Dead or Alive President Continue to Spin Around

The rumoured demise of Turkmen president Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedow seem for the time being at least to be exaggerated although quite who(now established - see Jamestown Foundation source) fed the media what appears to be false news and why has yet to be established. What though can be gleaned from one of the world's most closed…

Turkmenistan: A totalitarian ‘paradise’ of forced holidays and disappearing people

The timing of a demand made of many of Turkmenistan's state workers situated in the Dashoguz region to take their vacations in the Caspian Sea resort of Awaza, the site of one of President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedow's many high-profile, exorbitantly costly and ultimately futile pet projects, could hardly have been worse. Faced with the bizarre ultimatum…

Foreign Governments continue to turn a blind eye to gas-rich Turkmenistan’s despotic regime

Turkmenistan's appalling record of human rights violations and its ranking at the very bottom of the World Press Freedom Index should see it internationally regarded as a pariah state, but a continued clamour from the European Union and western powers to do business within the Central Asian republic only serves to underplay the oppressive, police…

Turkmenistan: Berdymukhamedow fails to live up to self-styled benefactor of the nation image

I don't smoke or drink alcohol, although that isn't to say I haven't at one time or another or fail to understand the rationale behind why people do so to varying degrees. Nor, however, do I condone the excuses so often hidden behind, and used to justify, in particular with alcohol, levels of behaviour that…

Turkmenistan: When seeing is not believing in a land of (totalitarian) pretence

The continued bizarre, contrary modus operandi of Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedow again highlights the former dentist's despotic hold over the former Soviet republic. Self-styled as a deity predestined to shepherd the nation to greatness through his many initiatives that often amount to little more than yet another Potemkin-esque, white elephant construction project, Berdymukhamedow's absolute grip…

Turkmenistan: Can Berdymukhamedow get what he came for from US visit?

It is as of yet unclear if recent US policy prohibiting the acquisition of Turkmenistan cotton has taken effect, or if it amounts to little more than lip service without actual implementation. Nevertheless, for the central Asian republic such publicity regarding its vital cash crop can only be bad, highlighting in the strongest terms the…

Turkmenistan: President Berdymukhamedow Raps while his Countrymen Sing for their Suppers

Fiddling while Rome burns has always been the preserve of emperor Nero, although the idiom that in effect describes a focus on the trivial while issues of greater importance are left unattended has been adopted on countless occasions by those, in modern parlance, who seek to control the controllables, rather than address the more pertinent…