TURKMENISTAN'S MINISTRY OF CULTURE OPEN TO COOPERATION --

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 ASHGABAT 000150

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

STATE FOR SCA/CEN (PERRY)
INFO SCA/PPD (VAN DE VATE),IIP/G/NEA-SA

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: KPAO PREL PINR TX
SUBJECT: TURKMENISTAN'S MINISTRY OF CULTURE OPEN TO COOPERATION --
ALONG PRESCRIBED LINES

SUMMARY
--------------


1. (U) In the first meeting between the embassy and the Minister of
Culture in over a year, Minister Enebay Atayeva proved herself a
seasoned apparatchik but nervous about appearing too open in this
time of political transition. Though she dominated the meeting with
rhetoric of cultural nationalism, her suggestions of specific
ministry projects and goals provided a context for suggestions of
U.S. Government cooperation. Given this and the generally positive
history between post and the ministry, the meeting left post with
hopes for increased engagement once the presidential election is
over. End Summary.

READY TO COOPERATE
--------------


2. (U) Atayeva spoke during most of this 45-minute meeting, and a
couple of times veered off onto unrelated tangents, giving the
impression that she wished to block questions or requests from the
delegation. Nonetheless, Atayeva outlined continuing priorities for
the ministry and proved receptive when delegation members asked if
she would be open to further cooperation with the U.S. Government in
areas including: international events and festivals; study and
propagation of folkloric tradition; theater programs -- including
music and dance; and youth arts education and development. Atayeva
expressed receptiveness to hosting Fulbright specialists and
bilateral exchanges with cultural institutes in the United States.
She also expressed a willingness to explore a reopening of the IATP
Center once housed at the National Library, in the new National
Library-Cultural complex. Throughout, Atayeva was careful to remain
vague and noncommittal, but still positive, on prospects for
increased bilateral cooperation in the cultural sphere.


3. (U) The U.S. delegation included the Department of State's
Director of Press and Public Affairs for South and Central Asia
Katherine Van De Vate, Division Director for Freedom Support Act
Programs Deborah Klepp, representative for the Bureau of Democracy,
Human Rights and Labor Catherine Kuchta-Helbling, Public Affairs
Officer Andrew Paul and Cultural Affairs Officer Sarah Hutchison;
Atayeva was joined by the head of the Ministry of Culture's
International Department Agadurdy Akmyradov.


4. (U) The practiced but restrained Atayeva led by thanking the
U.S. Government for sending the delegation to meet with the
ministry. Atayeva sounded brusque when noting that Deputy Assistant
Secretary of State Evan Feigenbaum had not met with the ministry but

SIPDIS
with the Institute of Manuscripts during his visit earlier in
January. Van De Vate thanked the minister for her own fruitful
meeting at the Institute on January 29, at which post had suggested
possible partnerships with the Institute and U.S. specialists or
institutions in the United States; she also thanked the minister for
her ministry's support of post cultural programs such as the
Ambassador's Fund for Cultural Preservation grant program. (Note:
The Ministry of Culture has been supportive of most of post's
suggested cultural programming and particularly of the Ambassador's
Fund Program. End Note.) The minister several times during the
meeting invited the delegation to visit Turkmenistan's state-run
musical and theater productions, museums and other cultural sites.
Van de Vate noted that some delegation members would visit the Kone
Urgench historical site in Dashoguz on February 2.

Turkmen Pride
--------------


5. (U) In response to Van de Vate's question about the ministry's
priority areas for development, Atayeva began a soliloquy on the
importance of Turkmen culture and national identity to the state of
Turkmenistan and a description of recent important ministry
projects. Atayeva stated that in any country, its culture was
deeply intertwined with the country's history and national identity,
and reiterated the Ministry's support for late President Saparmurat
Niyazov's plan for the political, economic and cultural development
of Turkmenistan until 2020. Atayeva praised Niyazov for his efforts
to outline and support Turkmen culture as a way of strengthening the
Turkmen nation.


6. (U) Akmuradov described a planned April 1-7 theater and folklore
festival, for which the ministry said it had issued 30 invitations
worldwide for participation. Atayeva named such international
festivals and conferences as a priority area for the ministry
because "in contrast with previous festivals" this effort will
involve groups from the United States, South America and "at least

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three to four countries from each continent" to provoke an exchange
of ideas and perspectives. (Note: Post has not learned to whom the
invitations for U.S. participation have been sent. End Note.)
Other international conferences which Atayeva referenced as models
of the ministry's goals included a women's conference, a forum on
the Turkmen national poet Magtymguly, a Ruhnama conference, a
children's art conference, and conference on the cultural heritage
in Kone Urgench that marked UNESCO's designation of the site as a
World Heritage Site. Atayeva dwelled on UNESCO's high esteem for
Kone Urgench and spoke in similar words about Margush (another site
supported by an Ambassador's Fund grant). Atayeva said that the
Kone Urgench conference prompted the Ministry of Culture to order
that a faculty of restoration and preservation be opened at the
Institute of Culture; the faculty just accepted its first fifteen
students in fall 2006.


7. (U) The folklore festival was also illustrative of the
ministry's emphasis on traditional dance and music, and Atayeva
spoke at length about how traditional forms of art combined with a
strong knowledge of national history provide the basis for modern
artistic expression. She praised each of Turkmenistan's regions for
its distinctive cultural legacy and particularly Balkan Welayat for
its highly preserved and "goal oriented" dance traditions. It was
difficult to draw a line between folklore culture and national
traditions, she noted; through expressions of folk dance and music
Turkmenistan's artists expressed "the real Turkmenistan." (Comment:
The Minister took this opportunity to describe her attendance at a
traditional Lithuanian dance event in Lithuania where she asked a
bystander about the dance's meaning. The dance was "monotone" and
seemed to have no meaning, and the bystander knew nothing about this
expression of his own culture. Such criticisms of other countries
or governments is a common theme in conversations with local
officials and the Ministry of Education, usually in the context of
host government attempts to stymie post programming in the
educational sphere. End Comment).


8. (U) The construction of several new drama theaters in Ashgabat
and the regions and the ministry's continued support for "people's
theaters" in the regions was also part of the continuing plan of the
Ministry of Culture. Atayeva praised the latter as an expressive
outlet for all strata of society, including "housewives, students,
doctors and technicians" and noted the ministry's consistent support
and guidance of these theaters. (Comment: Post has not seen
evidence of such community theaters but assumes Atayeva was making a
reference to Soviet-era amateur theater clubs that used to operate
through places of work and in communities but that may have been
absorbed by formal state structures. End Comment.)


9. (U) In keeping with a ministry desire to cultivate a knowledge
of Turkmen cultural traditions among the young, the ministry
continued to carry out national competitions, originally initiated
by a presidential decree, to find the most talented young musicians
and other artists throughout Turkmenistan and to showcase their work
in theaters. According to Atayeva, the ministry demonstrated its
ample support for arts education through its administration of the
Institute of Culture, National Conservatory, and art and music
vocational and secondary schools throughout Turkmenistan. Atayeva
stressed the need to work with students -- those "whose opinions are
unformed" and teachers of the Institute of Culture.


10. (U) Atayeva shifted from theater to museums, noting that each
welayat had a strong regional museum, many of which have unique
exhibitions not even found in Ashgabat's National Museum. As part
of the new Library-Cultural Center being built in Ashgabat, the
complex's museum would display items owned by President Niyazov and
describe the development of Turkmenistan in tandem with the rule of
Niyazov.

IATP
--------------


11. (U) At this point Van De Vate was able to get in a word to ask
about museum partnerships and then to follow up on post's concern
about the eviction of the Internet Access and Training Program site
formerly housed at the National Library. Atayeva grew visibly
annoyed at the latter question, though she expressed a willingness
to look into reopening IATP at the new Library-Cultural Center. The
new Center was slated to have dozens of public access Internet
terminals as well as a concert hall and the museum. The new library
would house 6.5 million items, one million more than the current
National Library, making Internet connectivity in the center
"essential," according to Atayeva. While the center would open
officially on February 16, it would take months to move and

ASHGABAT 00000150 003 OF 003


catalogue the entire collection.


12. (U) Clearly eager to close the meeting, Atayeva embarked on an
speech on the importance of women leaders, telling a couple of
joking anecdotes to suggest that men were irrelevant. She also made
a disjointed attempt to draw a connection between her view and
Turkmen national culture, suggesting that Turkmen culture values
women's judgment as equal to or often exceeding that of men.
Atayeva closed the meeting by agreeing enthusiastically to a
suggestion that post meet again with ministry officials to discuss
particular programs and urged Emboffs to route plans through the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs via a diplomatic note as is customary.

COMMENT AND BIOGRAPHIC NOTES
--------------


13. (SBU) Atayeva arguably is the second highest ranking woman in
the government after Parliamentary Speaker President Akja
Nurberdiyeva (septel). Both during the Niyazov's funeral and at the
February 2 40-day wake ceremony at the Gypjak national mosque,
Atayeva and Nurberdiyeva were given special duties to accompany
Niyazov's family. During a January 11 remembrance day event
observing the 1881 massacre of Turkmen by Tzarist troops at Gokdepe,
Nurberdiyeva led the female government officials and diplomatic
corps representatives to the balcony of the mosque. Atayeva sat to
her right and the Deputy Governor of Ahal Province to her left. The
Minister of Education Shemshat Annagylyjova sat past the various
handmaidens down to the far left; and nobody talked to her.


14. (U) Atayeva, in office since late April, 2006, is herself an
alumna of the International Visitor Leadership Program (she
participated in the 1999 program Agricultural Trade: Food Safety and
Regulation) and, as she proudly stated, has a broad range of
professional experience. While a pediatrician by training, she has
served as Minister of Finance and Economics, Minister of Social
Welfare, Hakim of Ahal Welayat (from which position she was
dismissed for unspecified "shortcomings") and as Chairwoman of the
state-run Women's Union. (Note: The Deputy Minister of Culture is
an alumnus of the State Department's TV-COOP program; post is
currently following up on a program for the coming year, having
received a proposal from state television. End Note.)


15. (SBU) That Atayeva expressed a desire for expansion of ministry
efforts in arts education leaves open the possibility that post can
offer a Fulbright Senior Specialist to work with the Institute of
Culture. Such a specialist could be based either at the Institute,
a vocational school, or the conservatory to assist in broadening the
scope of instruction in the visual arts, music or theater, develop
institute or school administrative capacity, or to assist in
curriculum of the new archaeology/conservation department, among
others subject areas.


16. (U) Post is thinking along similar lines for educational or
research institutes under other ministries, such as the Agricultural
or Medical Institutes, vocational schools and institutes, as well as
scientific institutes. Post can also work within the folklore, arts
festival and youth development goals or target areas to create
programs of common interest that would be available both to the
audience within the research, educational and public institutes of
the Ministry of Culture, as well as to an unfiltered public audience
through the American Corners and Public Affairs Section outreach
events. One idea is to bring a Native American dance troupe to
participate in the April folklore festival, which could then to
travel to the regions for independent programs with young
audiences.


17. (U) While the minister was not pleased with the mention of
IATP, she did not reject the suggestion that IATP operate within the
new library. These positive signs, mixed with the minister's heavy
dose of nationalistic rhetoric, suggests that though attitudes
within the ministry will take a long time to evolve to create a real
dialogue and openness with post, nonetheless the ministry has
revealed several common interests which post can use to expand its
cooperation in the cultural sphere. End Comment.

BRUSH