ACTING PARLIAMENT SPEAKER NURBERDIYEVA WELCOMES A/S BOUCHER

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 ASHGABAT 000201

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE

SIPDIS

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

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PREL PGOV SOCI EAID TX US
SUBJECT: ACTING PARLIAMENT SPEAKER NURBERDIYEVA WELCOMES A/S BOUCHER

REF: Ashgabat 146

SUMMARY
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1. (U) Acting Parliamentary (Mejlis) Speaker Akja Nurberdiyeva
unreservedly welcomed SCA A/S Boucher's suggestion of legislative
exchange and assistance activities in their cordial February 15
meeting. Nurberdiyeva described the Mejlis's altered functions and
listed its main current agenda items, which are largely linked to
the agricultural reforms that she projects will be declared by the
next session of the Halk Maslahaty (People's Council) in March. END
SUMMARY.

CURRENT MEJLIS AND ITS AGENDA
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2. (U) A/S Boucher noted that now is a very hopeful moment and
opportunity to develop the bilateral relationship and contribute to
Turkmenistan's development. He asked about the current situation
with the Mejlis and its activities ahead. Nurberdiyeva replied that
the Mejlis's current 50 deputies are constitutionally scheduled to
grow to 65 at the next election, in December 2008. All deputies are
elected on a single-mandate basis. The Mejlis's work is by five
committees, dealing in the following spheres: human rights; economic
and social policy; science, education and culture; international and
interparliamentary relations; and coordination with village-level
authorities. This last committee, noted the Speaker, is just a few
years old, but of particular significance since it gives the best
chance to work directly with lower-level authorities and thereby in
consultation with the population itself. All draft laws affecting
the broad public are "of course" published for public reaction, she
added.


3. (U) Apart from the five committees, the Mejlis also forms ad hoc
working groups with experts from Ministries or elsewhere, she
continued. At times, these experts are international ones. For
example, the Mejlis consulted the International Red Cross in the
process of forming legislation to establish the local Red Crescent.
There is also collaboration with the OSCE and UN. The Mejlis has a
five-year agreement (now in its third year; annual workplans are
signed each year) with UNICEF, focused on women's and children's
issues.


4. (U) Asked what was on the current legislative agenda,
Nurberdiyeva at once specified various draft laws connected to the
agricultural-sector agenda of the upcoming (March) session of the
Halk Maslahaty. The first of these, she said, was Turkmenistan's
Land Law (which, she volunteered, was well-known to have been
drawn-up in haste and to contain "many problems," requiring much
modification and supplementation.) In this same category are the
laws on farmers' associations and on defining the authorities of
regional bodies. Aside from agriculture, items for action include
the Criminal Procedure Code, a law on trafficking in persons, "and
many others if there were time."


5. (U) Nurberdiyeva referred generally to "the many issues" that
arose from the campaign platform of Turkmenistan's newly-elected
president. These, she said, involve multiple "big reforms," all of
which in turn will generate the need for important legislative
decisions, especially with regard to social-policy.


6. (U) Boucher asked if private property of land were in prospect.
"No," answered the Speaker immediately. "Land belongs to the
state." She then elaborated that under existing law farmers with an
excellent record can receive land "in ownership," entailing the
rights of lifetime cultivation and to bequeath -- but not to sell.
A/S Boucher commented that inability to sell land for liquid assets
ran counter to President Berdimuhammedov's campaign endorsement of
increased entrepreneurial activity. Nurberdiyeva politely
disagreed, noting that such "leaseholder" farmers were unfettered in
planting the crops of their choice and in selling their harvests to
whom and for the price they chose.

OUTLOOK FOR POLITICAL SHIFTS?

ASHGABAT 00000201 002 OF 003


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7. (SBU) Boucher asked about the Turkmenistan's political evolution
in the post-presidential-election period. The Speaker made an
unorthodox albeit vague reference to how "we saw what areas need to
be improved in the presidential elections" (no further detail). On
the subject of political parties, she was at pains to point out that
the latter were not banned. The current Law on Public Associations
explicitly allows their formation, she asserted. But preconditions
of societal consciousness are involved. Nothing positive is gained
by creation of "artificial" parties, she said. (NOTE: She was
echoing the words of Berdimuhammedov as part of the latter's
generally affable reply to a question about a multi-party system.
END NOTE.) The vital precondition was to be wholly sure that a
party reflected a genuine grassroots constituency with concrete and
shared interests.


8. (SBU) Boucher countered that, even so, government has a role to
play: making clear that it welcomes the principle of parties via TV
etc. Parliaments, also, exist as a place to allow and display
debates and discussion almost as much as to pass laws. The Speaker
narrated how, as far back as 1992, there had been the question of
whether to form a Peasants' (farmers') Party. Now, there was a
legitimate issue as to whether there deserved to be an
entrepreneurs' party. In any case, the Halk Maslahaty's 2507
members already embody all social elements and viewpoints, from
youth to pensioners. Everyone there can voice proposals,
observations, visions. Maybe the question of political parties will
be discussed at the upcoming Halk Maslahaty session, she concluded.


9. (SBU) Did the Speaker foresee any shift in Turkmenistan's system
of presidential power? Nurberdiyeva's nimble response was to note
that Niyazov himself had pronounced the need to reconsider the
status of the Mejlis as part of the 2008 election process. The
Mejlis was a fifteen-year-old institution whose function is being
shifted from lawmaking towards a relatively heavier component of
oversight function. She referred to the weekly "Parliament Hour" on
TV, laying forth not just new laws or drafts but also
well-established ones, and inviting comment. By such monitoring, it
could determine whether a given law was inherently inadequate or
whether its implementation was just weak. "I think this (oversight
function) will increase -- this is what we are moving towards."


10. (U) Nurberdiyeva termed the Mejlis "a limb" of the Halk
Maslahaty. The latter has exclusive authority over constitutional
matters, including any future questions about changing the nation's
political system. Legislation with which the Mejlis deals can
originate either within the Mejlis itself or from a variety of other
realms, not merely the presidency but Ministries, etc.

ENTHUSIASM FOR PARLIAMENTARY PROGRAMS
--------------


11. (U) Boucher, seconded by USAID Regional Director Crowley,
expressed U.S. readiness to engage in parliamentary exchange and
other technical programs, e.g., establishing a parliamentary library
with internet access. "We would greet them with pleasure,"
immediately replied the Speaker. Almost one third of the Mejlis's
members already have traveled to the U.S., she noted; one member of
the Human Rights Committee was due to depart soon.


12. (SBU) Crowley highlighted the availability of U.S. expertise for
Trafficking-in-Persons (TIP) legislation and implementation; Boucher
added that trafficking was a U.S. priority throughout the world.
Nurberdiyeva commented that such problems were thankfully "perhaps
not so bad" in Turkmenistan, because of the nation's "mentality and
moral values" but that measures were nonetheless important for
prevention. She repeated that the Mejlis would be eager to discuss
outreach and expertise proposals. Its current interparliamentary
exchanges are narrowly and weakly developed: occasional visits of
members to Turkey or Iran.


13. Concluding, Boucher mentioned his earlier meeting with
Turkmenistan's newly-inaugurated president and referred to the
Speaker's own meeting a fortnight earlier with EUR/ACE Coordinator
Adams. We looked forward to more cordial meetings of this type, but

ASHGABAT 00000201 003 OF 003


even more important was to agree on and implement actual practical
steps. Nurberdiyeva's animated closing response was to stress that
President Berdimuhammedov had spoken throughout the electoral
campaign about the need for national development with special
attention on education, technological advances and providing
opportunity for youth, and that his inauguration speech had dwelt on
international exchanges: both inviting foreign specialists to
Turkmenistan and sending students abroad.

COMMENT
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14. (SBU) As in her January 31 meeting with the EUR/ACE delegation
(Reftel),the Speaker both projected an uncommonly appealing,
natural persona and had fluent, informative answers to Boucher's
inquiries. This time, however, her reactions to suggestions of U.S.
programs were consistently unrestrained by the caution that we read
into her responses then. Also missing this time was any caveat
about all potential programs needing to be channeled exclusively
through the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (reftel, para 13). Perhaps
this betokens that Berdimuhammedov's inauguration yesterday indeed
heralded the start of tacitly understood new rules for such
interaction. More generally, she made plain that she expects the
results of next month's Halk Maslahaty session in agriculture to be
"historical," and her utterances on the importance of democratic
consultation with local-level authority and social grassroots seemed
sincere and quite striking.


15. (U) This was our third lengthy encounter with Nurberdiyeva in
the last month (counting Charge's Remembrance Day "sadaka" lunch
with her in the Gokdepe Mosque balcony.)

BRUSH