TURKEMNISTAN'S PRESIDENT BERDIMUHAMEDOV AND SCA

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 ASHGABAT 001257 SIPDIS SIPDIS STATE FOR SCA/CEN, ECA, OBO E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/21/2107 TAGS: PGOV PREL AMGT SCUL TX SUBJECT: TURKEMNISTAN'S PRESIDENT BERDIMUHAMEDOV AND SCA PDAS MANN: EDUCATION AND DIPLOMATIC PROPERTY ISSUES (11/16/07) Classified By: CHARGE RICHARD E. HOAGLAND FOR REASONS 1.4 (B),(D) ¶1. (U) U.S. PARTICIPANTS: SCA PDAS Steven Mann Charge d,affaires Richard Hoagland TURKMENISTAN PARTICIPANTS: President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov Deputy Prime Minister/Foreign Minister Rashit Meredov ¶2. (C) SUMMARY: President Berdimuhamedov continues to ask for cooperation in education, but it,s clear some officials are keeping from him offers that the United States and the European Union have already been made. Registration of the Ashgabat International School continues to be stuck, with the President suggesting it should come under the control of the Ministry of Education. He also expressed his surprise that a country of the stature of the United States maintains an inappropriately small and overly modest chancery and "not very nice" housing compound. END SUMMARY. ¶3. (SBU) During an hour and 15-minute conversation with President Berdimuhamedov on November 16 devoted largely to energy issues (septel),SCA PDAS Mann raised educational cooperation, and the need to register the Ashgabat International School. EDUCATION ¶4. (SBU) Mann said we want to strengthen our cooperation in education to support the President,s desire to reform this sector. Mann noted U.S. professors are eager to work in Turkmenistan, and we will continue our educational exchange programs. He passed over a summary of the FLEX program. Berdimuhamedov responded that Turkmenistan is establishing a new international university, where U.S. professors would be welcome, and is developing a new international cultural center where they would likewise be welcome. He added that he would like to have U.S. students come to Turkmenistan as well: "We want that kind of contact. But time is passing," he commented, "and we really need your concrete proposals." ¶5. (SBU) Mann flagged Kazakhstan,s Bolashak Program in which, inter alia, the government of Kazakhstan is paying for 750 Kazakh students to study in the United States this year with U.S. facilitation. He passed to the President a Russian-language description of the program, and noted if Turkmenistan established a similar program, the United States �0A;would fully facilitate such an effort. Berdimuhamedov responded, "Kazakhstan,s been doing this for a long time. It,s a good program." ¶6. (C) COMMENT: We are convinced Berdimuhamedov is not briefed on the full range of education cooperation the United States has proposed to the Ministry of Education, and that the ministry has not accepted. On the morning of November 17, as a result of his visit to Brussels, Berdimuhamedov reportedly called in Minister of Education Annaamanov and raked him over the coals for not implementing the EU-TACIS proposal for the Erasmus Exchange Program that would offer a significant number of educational exchange slots in Europe for Turkmenistani students. The shaken minister then called in EU-TACIS adviser Michael Wilson and worked all afternoon to pin down the details to implement the program. The U.S. and European embassies are in full agreement that Ministry of Education International Relations Chief Nury Bayramov is the bad seed who works to keep Turkmenistani students out of the West. From where Bayramov derives his power is unclear, but we note he is a hold-over from the Niyazov era and formerly supervised Minister Annaamanov when the minister was a "mere" ASHGABAT 00001257 002 OF 003 institute rector. Possibly of more concern, Foreign Minister Meredov is fully aware of U.S. and EU offers to cooperate in educational reform. One would have thought he would have briefed the President about U.S. and EU offers when the President has explicitly said he wants this kind of educational cooperation. END COMMENT. ASHGABAT INTERNATIONAL SHOOL ¶7. (SBU) PDAS Mann emphasized the need, in the context of attracting investment, to register the Ashgabat International School (AIS). Without official registration, it cannot enlarge its current facility or move to a larger building elsewhere in the city, because without registration it "doesn,t exist." He passed to President Berdimuhamedov information in Russian about the school and photographs of the currently over-crowded conditions. ¶8. (C) BACKGROUND: The Embassy has led the effort to legally register the school for several years, and the Charge renewed the effort in July, thinking that should be a relatively easy issue to solve in the post-Niyazov era. Instead, Foreign Minister Meredov has come up with one after another specious reason why it cannot be registered. END BACKGROUND. ¶9. (C) Berdimuhamedov responded that Turkmenistani law makes no provision for registering a foreign educational institution. He suggested we look at the Russian model. Gazprom has granted the government of Turkmenistan $23 million to construct a state-of-the-art Russian-Turkmen Secondary School that will be under the supervision of Turkmenistan,s Ministry of Education. Mann replied it would be most difficult if AIS were required to be under Ministry of Education control. Berdimuhamedov asked, "But what does 'international school' mean? Why should there be such a thing here?" Mann replied that international schools exist in 120 countries around the world and play an essential role in attracting international investors. "WHY DO YOU HAVE SUCH TACKY PROPERTIES?" ¶10. (SBU) Berdimuhamedov noted the current AIS is "not a very nice building," an eye-sore in an elite construction zone. ¶11. (SBU) NOTE: The AIS is a modest one-story component building located immediately to the south of the U.S. Embassy housing compound on Archibil Avenue, which the government has designated a hyper-elite construction zone. Within about a one-mile stretch of the avenue, there are already the President Hotel, the high-rise for all oil and gas entities, the new commodities and stock exchange high-rise, the presidential guest house, the Chinese and Saudi Arabian embassies, the grandiose new Turkish Embassy residence (the government of Turkey wanted something more modest but the government of Turkmenistan demanded a 12,000 sq. ft., four-story marble palace),the new UN Center for Preventative Diplomacy, the National Museum, the National Theater, the National Cultural Center, the National Olympic Ice Skating Complex, the Ministry of Health, and, under construction, the new National Medical University and the high-rise National Oncology Research Center and Hospital adjacent to the U.S. Embassy housing compound on a property expropriated from the residence of the Embassy of Uzbekistan. END NOTE. ¶12. (C) The President then fired the first shot that we have long expected. "Your housing compound is not at all appropriate for a country of your status. Your ambassador,s residence is too modest. Further, I recently saw your new embassy in Dushanbe. That,s a real embassy. Why do you have an embassy like that in Tajikistan, but you don,t have ASHGABAT 00001257 003 OF 003 something appropriate here?" ¶13. (SBU) COMMENT: By Turkmen government standards, if you have power -- or pretensions to power -- you live in white-marble and crystal-chandelier grandiosity. END COMMENT. ¶14. (U) Ambassador Mann has cleared this cable. HOAGLAND