UN SECRETARIAT OFFICIAL ON BERDIMUHAMMEDOV

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 ASHGABAT 000191

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

SIPDIS

STATE FOR SCA/CEN (PERRY),SCA/PPD, EUR/ACE

USUN FOR ECOSOC/HUGHES, MALLY

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PREL PGOV PINR TX US
SUBJECT: UN SECRETARIAT OFFICIAL ON BERDIMUHAMMEDOV

Ref: Ashgabat 178

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

1. (SBU) Charge exchanged post-Niyazov views February 10 with
visiting UN Secretariat official Vladimir Goryayev, a Turkmenistan
veteran with extraordinary local access. Goryayev predicted that
change would be slow and cautious at best under Berdimuhammedov,
since the latter will remain fettered by "the (Niyazov) Old Guard."
But he also claimed to have obtained concessions from the interim
president in a meeting the previous day, including for a UN
Rapporteur's visit before June. Goryayev pressed fervently for USG
support to install a UN Preventative Diplomacy Center in Ashgabat, a
long-standing project which he likewise promoted during Niyazov's
life. END SUMMARY.

An Old Hand Talks of the Old Guard
--------------


2. (SBU) Currently Deputy Director of the Asia and Pacific Division
in the UN's department of Political Affairs, Goryayev is a very old
Turkmenistan hand with extraordinary local access at highest levels.
He has been at the UN for over twenty years, by most accounts was
instrumental in facilitating Niyazov's Declaration of Turkmenistan's
Neutrality in 1994, and reputedly maintained close personal
relations with Niyazov ever since. Never before had he approached
Embassy Ashgabat (our previous contact consisted of a fleeting
encounter or two at receptions),but he contacted Charge Friday
through the Turkmenistan MFA with an urgent request for contact.
The meeting over a Charge-hosted Saturday lunch lasted two hours.


3. (SBU) Goryayev told us he had met with Interim President
Berdimuhammedov the day before. Additionally, he had seen Foreign
Minister Meredov twice "for a total of many hours" since Thursday.
He implied his talks had produced an encouraging picture for
progressive prospects, but simultaneously admonished that such
progress will be very slow at best. Little or no political steps
should be expected soon -- no dramatic declarations or cabinet
re-shuffle in the new president's inauguration speech, for example.
Partly, this was because Turkmenistan society remained traditional
and cautious in the extreme about change, even positive change. But
there was a further iron restraint: the position and riches of "the
Old Guard" depended totally on keeping Niyazov's legacy intact,
Goryayev asserted.


4. (SBU) Goryayev defined this "Old Guard" as consisting of "nine
or ten" figures, some in the shadows, who put forth Berdimuhammedov
because he was a relatively non-descript, time-serving survivor who
would not build up personal power. Berdimuhammedov was in effect a
front-man for this group, which was sure to block any even symbolic
political shift from Niyazov's days. The interim president was even
uncertain whether he would win the February 11 election, according
to Goryayev. (Charge interjected that "in that case he's the only
one who is.")

Rumor Exchange
--------------


5. (SBU) We questioned why, if these premises were true,
Berdimuhammedov could have made his January 3 speech with elements
that manifestly aimed to undo some of Niyazov's hobbyhorses.
Goryayev's non-response was that "just a few of the nine or ten"
group backing Berdimuhammedov had been involved in working up that
speech. Asked for any insights as to how the succession had been so
smoothly organized after Niyazov's abrupt death, Goryayev offered
none, just speculating as have others that the death may have been
concealed for a day or two while arrangements were made. He
reflected that FM Meredov in their long meetings had seemingly gone
out of his way to cite his (Meredov's) contacts and conversations
with Niyazov purportedly through the eve of the announcement of his
death, i.e., December 20.


ASHGABAT 00000191 002 OF 004



6. (SBU) Talk turned to the rumored recent move from Owadandepe
jail of former Oil Minister Gurbanmyradov (Reftel). Goryayev said
Gurbanmyradov was now out of jail altogether, just under house
arrest. However, he emphatically rejected the recent prediction by
another source that Gurbanmyradov might return to his old post in
the new government. According to Goryayev, Gurbanmyradov was
released out of Berdimuhammedov's sense of tribal loyalty (they are
both Tekes from Gokdepe) instead, which Goryayev characterized as
"not really a positive sign." He was likewise initially dismissive
of the notion that "grey eminence" Rejepov would retire from his
security position by April, but seemed less certain when apprised
that the rumor came from a serious source. Goryayev argued that
while Rejepov's son Husein Rejepov ran the Consular Department at
the MFA, the son needed the father to remain in government so he
could keep his job at MFA. (Comment: This is Byzantine logic, but
also possibly true. End Comment.)

Berdimuhammedov Agrees to UN Rapporteur Visit?
-------------- -


7. (SBU) Goryayev announced he had won three separate concessions
in his talk with Berdimuhammedov.

-- First, the Central Election Commission (CEC) would now become a
standing body, rather than be specially formed for each election.

-- Second, the UN would work with Turkmenistan to improve its
current Election Law, as passed by the Halk Maslahaty on December

26. (Comment: The electoral areas in which Goryayev said the UN
would work with Turkmenistan are the same in which we understand
ODIHR projects doing so. He plainly had not coordinated with the
OSCE, whom Goryayev was due to see that evening. As for the
formation of a standing CEC for which Goryayev took credit: that
announcement was made two weeks ago in the form of a published
amendment to the December 26 Law on Elections; unless he was in
contact long-distance it would seem the credit belongs elsewhere.
End Comment.)

-- Third, was a commitment to invite a UN Rapporteur to visit
Turkmenistan. This person, Goryayev specified, would be the UN's
longstanding permanent rapporteur for religious matters, Pakistan's
Asma Jahingir. She would come to Ashgabat no later than May, be
given unfettered access, and write a public report. As part of her
visit, Goryayev expected Jahingir to organize a "religious
roundtable" event embracing representatives of all faiths.


8. (SBU) In response to the third initiative, Charge asked if this
prospective roundtable would include Catholics, whose church was not
now allowed to be registered except as an NGO? Wincing slightly,
Goryayev claimed he had raised the Catholics' situation with the
interim president, but that there remained a barrier in the form of
the law requiring the local head of any registered church to be a
citizen of Turkmenistan. He plainly was not prepared to press the
issue for now.


9. (SBU) Goryayev implied he had persuaded the acting President to
soon release two "high profile" prisoners who were "good people,"
and to come to new agreements with the ICRC about prison visits.
(Comment: Goryayev would not release their names and Charge has no
idea to whom he was referring. End Comment.) Goryayev said that
Berdimuhammedov would not/not extend this treatment to ministers or
other ex-officials in jail because "their hands were sticky" (i.e.,
for well-founded corruption charges.)


10. (SBU) At this point, Goryayev suddenly asked "what do you think
would be the reaction if the government announces a synagogue will
be built in Ashgabat?" Charge agreed such a move would be
dramatically positive (not least because of the implications
vis-`-vis Turkmenistan's main neighbor to the south),and again
pointed out the situation of the Catholics, whose original church,
"Transfiguration of the Lord," built in 1904, was destroyed in

1931.

ASHGABAT 00000191 003 OF 004



Return of the Preventative Diplomacy Center
--------------


11. (SBU) The main point of Goryayev's meeting request emerged at
its end. As expected, he launched a passionate pitch for the U.S.
to back his longstanding (going back to the late 1990s) project to
establish a regional UN Preventative Diplomacy Center in Ashgabat.
Charge replied that, as Goryayev knew, U.S. support for this project
had been unthinkable under Niyazov's rule, first and foremost due to
Niyazov, but that, even with Niyazov gone, the manifold practical
objections remained: lack of flights, hotels, modern postal,
internet or other infrastructure, gratuitously difficult working
conditions, e.g., dipnotes required for the most low-level and banal
affairs, etc.


12. (SBU) Refusing to acknowledge that these factors should weigh in
the decision, Goryayev kept insisting it was vital to establish the
Center now, on two main grounds:

-- to address the growing regional tensions throughout most of
Central Asia; and

-- to insert the "Trojan horse" of a UN presence so as to sway
Ashgabat's future. "(F)or every UN flag that flies outside the
Center, I will extract another (progressive) concession from the
president."


13. (SBU) Charge said she remained skeptical, but would agree to
reconsider the issue, were convincing arguments made. She repeated
that the government would have to make dramatic improvements in
infrastructure to warrant establishing a regional UN Center in
Turkmenistan.

Russia
--------------


14. Charge told Goryayev that Russia need and should not be left
out of our discussions and progress towards greater openness and
integration. From Goryayev's reaction, this aspect seemed neither
on his mind nor of interest. Instead he responded that he was born
in the Ukraine and his first language was Ukrainian (though he
occupies a Russian-quota slot at the UN).

BIO NOTE
--------------


15. (SBU) Goryayev is Ukrainian, from Sumy, where his father worked
in tandem for many years (no further details) with the father of
President Yushchenko, with whom Goryayev was boyhood pals, he says.
He looks in his fifties, suave and well-tailored; his English is a
bit short of impeccable, but fluently effective. Since
Turkmenistan's independence, Goryayev has been a frequent visitor
and was considered a fast confidante of President Niyazov's, as well
as the effective author of Turkmenistan's UN-approved "neutrality."
His motivation for pushing this through the UN remains a mystery.
His pitch for a preventative diplomacy center may be a pursuit for
his own UN fiefdom, attendant with all the head-of-UN agency perks,
or perhaps his motives are more altruistic.

COMMENT
--------------


16. (SBU) Post defers to Washington the issue of whether to
consider giving the Center a new lease of life in post-Niyazov
circumstances. From Ashgabat, there is no new argument in favor of
a project that with or without Niyazov still needs to demonstrate
that it has potential to be more than a bureaucratic or personal
vanity project. It would be interesting to know if USUN hears any
hint of wider Secretariat attention to resurrecting the Central
Asian Center. It also occurs to us that Goryayev's sudden new
cultivation of Embassy Ashgabat might indirectly owe something to

ASHGABAT 00000191 004 OF 004


the expectation that a U.S. diplomat is about to become his new UN
boss. End Comment.

BRUSH