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
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"

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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

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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