TURKMENISTAN: USG CONTRACTORS ARE THE INTERIOR MINISTER'S

UNCLAS ASHGABAT 000512 SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE FOR SCA/CEN, INL/AAE BUHLER DOJ/ICITAP FOR MOGLE E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV KCRM SOCI TX SUBJECT: TURKMENISTAN: USG CONTRACTORS ARE THE INTERIOR MINISTER'S NIGHTMARE REF: Ashgabat 392 ¶1. (U) Sensitive but unclassified. Not for public Internet. ¶2. (SBU) SUMMARY: A technician from the Tashkent office of the Agilent Technologies was dispatched to Ashgabat under the auspices of Post's INL-funded DOJ/ICITAP project with the Ministry of the Interior in order to repair a gas chromatograph that had earlier been donated under the project to the Ministry's Criminal Research Center (CRC). Although the Agilent technician, in accordance with a formal arrangement previously reached between the Embassy and the Ministry, arrived in Ashgabat on April 8, the Ministry refused to give him access to the CRC lab until the last day of his week-long visit, leaving less then 12 hours for him to repair the equipment. END SUMMARY. ¶3. (SBU) BACKGROUND: The CRC had previously informed Post that the AC board on a donated gas chromatograph had been damaged by a power surge, necessitating its replacement. ICITAP, in turn, contacted Agilent's regional representative, the Fortek Company in Tashkent, which had originally installed the chromatograph, requesting they replace the spare part. Fortek agreed. However, the part was not immediately available, and the company staff was booked for several months. Post eventually sent two diplomatic notes in March to the MFA informing of the technician's arrival date. ¶4. (SBU) The technician, who had previously traveled to Turkmenistan in 2006 to install the original chomatograph, went to the lab on the morning of April 9th, but was not allowed in. Post's INL Assistant then contacted the CRC, who told him they could not let the technician in without express permission from the Minister and gave him the name of someone to contact at the Ministry. When reached, the Ministry official said that they were aware of the technician's visit, but had been unable to obtain the Minister's consent. Consent was finally communicated on April 14, the day before the technician's scheduled departure. ¶5. (SBU) COMMENT: Interior Minister Amanmyradov took office in October 2007. Recently, he turned down ICITAP's invitation to attend the annual conference of the American Academy of Forensic Scientists. In addition, he has further been either unable or unwilling to resolve an issue surrounding the shipment to the lab of chemicals provided by ICITAP (Reftel). ¶6. (SBU) COMMENT CONTINUED: In a subsequent phone conversation, CRC chemist Bezirgen Orazmyradov thanked INL Assistant profusely for the Embassy's assistance in resolving the access issue and commented, "I don't know why the bosses did that. It looks like they're afraid to make decisions. I even called up the Ministry's International Relations officer and chewed him out, and told him that we, not they, needed this equipment to do our job, and that it was only thanks to the Embassy that our equipment was repaired." END COMMENT. MILES