TURKMENISTAN: SCENESETTER FOR VISIT BY SPECIAL

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 ASHGABAT 000670 SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR SCA/CEN, EEB PLEASE PASS TO USTDA DAN STEIN USEU FOR SPECIAL ENVOY GRAY ENERGY FOR EKIMOFF/THOMPSON COMMERCE FOR HUEPER E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PREL PGOV ECON EPET TX SUBJECT: TURKMENISTAN: SCENESETTER FOR VISIT BY SPECIAL ENVOY FOR EURASIAN ENERGY C. BOYDEN GRAY, JUNE 5-6 REF: A. ASHGABAT 0219 ¶B. ASHGABAT 0363 ¶1. (U) Sensitive but unclassified. Not for public Internet. ¶2. (SBU) SUMMARY: Embassy Ashgabat warmly welcomes your visit to Turkmenistan as an important opportunity to advance our bilateral dialogue on energy. President Bush met briefly with President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov on April 3 at the NATO Summit in Bucharest. Other high-level U.S. meetings with him were Senator Richard Lugar in January, Energy Secretary Bodman in November 2007, and Secretary Rice in September 2007 during the UNGA in New York. Coordinator for Eurasian Energy Diplomacy Ambassador Steven Mann meets with Berdimuhamedov regularly, most recently on February 28. Into the second year of his presidency, Berdimuhamedov is increasingly self-confident and will not hesitate to speak his mind. We believe his instincts are generally right, even if his understanding is elementary and his implementation timelines unrealistically quick. In Summer 2007, he told U.S. visitors, "The debate is over. We have chosen to be a market economy." But he's starting from almost zero with very few on his team who have the experience and capacity to implement the reforms he says he wants. Like many ex-Soviet governments, Turkmenistan relies too heavily on presidential decrees and the power of law-on-paper. The longer-term monumental task will be to change a century of national political psychology, the entrenched bureaucracy, and the culture of rent-seeking. END SUMMARY. TURKMENISTAN POST-NIYAZOV ¶3. (SBU) A little more than a year into the new era, it is clear Turkmenistan is becoming significantly different from the international bad-joke pariah state it was under former President-for-Life Niyazov. But precisely what Turkmenistan is becoming is still a work in progress. Evidence increasingly suggests it could well one day become a responsible partner for the United States and a normal international player. As detailed in both reftels, Berdimuhamedov's fundamental policies have been promising: reform education, health care and the social sector; initiate financial reform and work toward becoming a market economy; redraft a new Constitution, draft or rewrite more than 30 laws -- including the laws on religion and civic organizations and the criminal and criminal procedures codes -- to bring them up to international standards, re-establish international relations and become a cooperative regional player; and open its vast hydrocarbon sector to international investment. ¶4. (SBU) However, he faces an uphill struggle against political traditions that favor autocratic governance models and a bureaucratic capacity stunted by 15 years of Niyazovian repression and solipcism. The challenge will not be to get new reforms on the books -- Berdimuhamedov is already beginning to do this -- but rather, to change the attitudes and modi operandi of those officials responsible for implementing the new policies. U.S.-TURKMENISTAN RELATIONS: PUSHING WHERE DOORS ARE OPENING ¶5. (SBU) U.S. policy in Turkmenistan is three-fold: -- Encourage democratic reform and increased respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms, including support for ASHGABAT 00000670 002 OF 004 improvements in the education and health systems; -- Promote economic reform and growth of a market economy and private-sector agriculture, as well as diversification of Turkmenistan's energy export options; and -- Expand security cooperation. ¶6. (SBU) Following Niyazov's death at the end of 2006, the United States offered to re-engage with Turkmenistan without preconditions. With about 30 delegations in the first year -- more in that year than in the previous six years combined -- we proposed multi-sector cooperation, and the embassy's access at the working level has been increasingly productive, especially in the fields of basic democratic/legislative and economic reforms. Turkmenistan matters because it is a Caspian littoral state important to the West for energy security. It could become like Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan -- generally independent of Russia and willing to work with the West. It also has strategic importance because of its long shared borders with Iran and Afghanistan (terrorism and narcotics),as well as its historic and potentially suffocating relationship with Russia. The fundamentals underlying our first year of re-engagement have been correct: push where the doors are opening, but do not try to force open doors that are not ready to open for us. We are achieving progress: we want to build on and enlarge that progress. ENERGY ¶7. (SBU) Turkmenistan has world-class natural gas reserves, but Russia's near monopoly of its energy exports has left Turkmenistan receiving much less than the world price and overly beholden to Russia, although Gazprom has agreed to pay "world price" starting in 2009. Pipeline diversification, including both a pipeline to China proposed for 2009 and the possibility of resurrecting plans for Trans-Caspian and Trans-Afghanistan pipelines that would avoid the Russian routes, and construction of high-voltage electricity lines to transport excess energy to Turkmenistan's neighbors, including Afghanistan, would not only enhance Turkmenistan's economic and political sovereignty, but also help fuel new levels of prosperity throughout the region. (NOTE: Turkmenistan agreed in April to begin providing an additional 300 Megawatts of electricity to Afghanistan in 2010 and to extend the current price at which Turkmenistan is selling electricity to Afghanistan -- 2 cents per kilowatt hour -- to ¶2010. END NOTE.) Berdimuhamedov has told U.S. interlocutors he recognizes the need for more options and has taken the first steps to this end, but he also took the steps needed to increase the volume of gas exports to Russia, signing an agreement (with Russia and Kazakhstan) in Moscow in December 2007 to enlarge and rebuild a non-functioning Soviet-era Caspian littoral pipeline. To date, little progress has been publicized on this project. He will require encouragement and assistance from the international community if he is to maintain a course of diversification in the face of ongoing Russian efforts to keep Turkmenistan from weaning itself away from Russia. ¶8. (SBU) One of the biggest challenges that Turkmenistan's hydrocarbon sector will have to face, if it is to succeed in pipeline diversification, is the need for increased natural-gas production. Turkmenistan produced a reported 72.3 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2007, a figure that barely ASHGABAT 00000670 003 OF 004 meets its existing domestic needs and export commitments. The president directed that production should increase to 81.5 bcm in 2008. Even larger increases will be needed as/if new pipelines come online. While Turkmenistan has welcomed foreign companies to work its offshore (primarily oil) Caspian blocks, it has up to now largely rejected allowing foreign energy companies to work its onshore gas fields, maintaining that it can handle the drilling itself. But onshore natural gas production offers some tough challenges, including ultra-deep, high-pressure, high-sulphur, sub-salt drilling, which requires special skills and technologies and lots of investment. One Western analyst suggested that costs could run as high as $100 billion over the next five years. No one outside of the Turkmen government believes Turkmenistan has either the skills or the investment needed. U.S. policy has been to promote onshore production by major western oil companies. We know there has been huge debate within the government about this, and we have watched views evolve. We believe, in the end, there will be major Western companies working onshore -- but we aren't there yet. (NOTE: Cables on Turkmenistan's hydrocarbon sector and developments in the hydrocarbon sector will follow. END NOTE.) ECONOMY AND FINANCE ¶9. (SBU) President Berdimuhamedov has stated repeatedly, in many fora, that he wants to develop an international-standard market economy and to promote foreign investment. To those ends, he has placed a new priority over the past eight months on promoting economic and financial reform. Turkmenistan has announced that it will redenominate its currency in 2009, lopping off three zeros, and has slowly begun to unify the country's dual exchange rates. The president has stated that some state enterprises will be privatized -- though not in "strategic" sectors like oil and gas, electricity, textiles, construction, transportation, and communications. He has signed a new foreign investment law, which, among other things, guarantees resident foreign businessmen and their families one-year, multi-entry visas, and approved changes to the tax code. The president divided the overworked Ministry of Economy and Finance into two bodies -- a Ministry of Economy and Development, and a Ministry of Finance, and he has created a Supreme Auditing Chamber with the goal of providing transparency in the budget process. In a notable development, the president also announced that he will abolish the opaque extrabudgetary funds that were prone under his predecessor to misuse and corruption. Finally, the state has slowly begun to raise the price of electricity and price of vehicle fuel. These measures may be part of an early effort to gradually phase out the state's extensive and tremendously expensive subsidies system. ¶10. (SBU) Even though the president has reshaped his bureaucracy, put in place the structures that theoretically should help promote a market economy, and opened Turkmenistan to cooperation with IFIs, the lack of basic understanding and bureaucratic capacity remains an enormous impediment to change. New reforms are being rolled out with inadequate preparation, understanding of their consequences and explanation -- and are leading to increased public dissatisfaction. USAID is working through its contractor, BearingPoint, to implement a new program to increase bureaucratic capacity and to support growth of private business in Turkmenistan. Department of Treasury representatives will also visit Turkmenistan in June and July to identify areas where Treasury might play a role in ASHGABAT 00000670 004 OF 004 promoting reform, should funding be available. FOREIGN POLICY ¶11. (SBU) Despite his statements that he plans to continue the "neutrality" policies of his predecessor, Berdimuhamedov has put an unprecedented emphasis on foreign affairs to repair Turkmenistan's international and regional relations and to become a respected player on the international stage. Under the president's leadership, Turkmenistan has reached out to participate actively in regional organizations. He has met with all the leaders in the region, as well as with those of other countries of importance to Turkmenistan. China has a strong and growing commercial presence in Turkmenistan, and continues to court the president through a series of high-level commercial and political visits, including a July 2007 Berdimuhamedov trip to Beijing focused on natural gas and pipeline deals. Presidents Berdimuhamedov and Gul (Turkey) have exchanged visits, but bilateral relations continue to be colored more by the image of Turkey's lucrative trade and construction contracts that are eating up large amounts of money from the national budget. Berdimuhamedov has held positive meetings with high-level leaders of international organizations (including both the UN and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) and IFIs that have led to productive, cooperative relationships. The UN High Commissioner on Human Rights, Louise Arbour, visited Turkmenistan in May 2007, and the High Commissioner on Religion will visit in September. ¶12. (SBU) Berdimuhamedov has held positive meetings with high-level U.S. officials and is well-disposed toward the United States. He made his first trip to the United States as president to participate in the UNGA session in September 2007, where he also met with Secretary of State Rice. In November 2007, Secretary of Energy Bodman met with Berdimuhamedov in Ashgabat, and Berdimuhamedov's meeting with President Bush during the April Bucharest NATO summit received extensive and very positive media coverage in Turkmenistan. Berdimuhamedov made his first visit to EU and NATO headquarters in Brussels in November 2007. SECURITY ¶13. (SBU) The U.S. security relationship with Turkmenistan continues to unfold, with slow but consistent cooperation. Although basing is not an option, Turkmenistan remains an important conduit for the U.S. military to Afghanistan. Maintaining blanket overflight permission and the military refueling operation at Ashgabat Airport remains a key U.S. goal. CENTCOM and Turkmenistan's military maintain an active military-to-military cooperation plan, and CENTCOM and the Nevada National Guard (operating through the State Partnership Program and CENTCOM's military cooperation program) have a productive counter-narcotics program that has funded training and completion of two border-crossing stations on the Iranian and Afghan borders and the construction of three more checkpoints, including one currently underway on the Uzbekistan border. With the assistance of the Embassy's EXBS program, the Embassy works to strengthen Turkmenistan's border security and to increase its ability to interdict smuggling of weapons of mass destruction. HOAGLAND