IRAN/TURKMENISTAN: SCHOLAR PREDICTS MORE OF THE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 02 ASHGABAT 000993

SIPDIS

STATE FOR NEA/IR AND SCA/CEN

E.O. 12958: DECL: 08/05/2019
TAGS: IR PGOV PHUM PREL TX
SUBJECT: IRAN/TURKMENISTAN: SCHOLAR PREDICTS MORE OF THE
SAME DURING SECOND AHMADINEJAD TERM

REF: ASHGABAT 204

ASHGABAT 00000993 001.2 OF 002


Classified By: DCM Sylvia Reed Curran. Reasons 1.4(b) and (d).


1. (C) In a conversation this week with Iran Watcher,
Ghandeem Gurbanov, Turkmenistan's most prominent FARSI
language scholar, who currently teaches at the Iranian
Embassy's Cultural Center in Ashgabat, said that Iranians
residing in Turkmenistan voted nearly unanimously for and
continue to support Mousavi. They are "heartbroken," he
said, at the way they believe the outcome of Iran's
presidential election was stage-managed in June. (NOTE:
Gurbanov, incidentally, had expressed serious concerns to us
last February that Iran's election would be engineered to
ensure a conservative victory. (Reftel). END NOTE.)

AHMADINEJAD'S TERM MAY NOT LAST ALL FOUR YEARS


2. (C) Gurbanov said that the Iranians he knows do not expect
Ahmadinejad to serve a full four-year term, and that his
tenure will be curtailed by either the death of Supreme
Leader Khamenei (reported to be seriously ill with cancer),
and/or outright removal from office. Gurbanov himself said
that Khamenei's public rebuff of Ahmadinejad's attempt to
kiss his hand during the August 3 endorsement ceremony as
signficant and further evidence of his loss of favor with the
Supreme Leader. He said that many Iranians believe that
Rafsanjani is a likely successor to Khamenei as Supreme
Leader, but that reforms are impossible under an Ahmadinejad
presidency and while Khamenei remains at the top. He further
opined that a second Ahmadinejad term does not augur well for
the possibility of rapprochement between the U.S. and Iran,
particularly as the Supreme Leader, in his view, has made it
clear that he does not favor improved relations with the
West. He also cited Iran's arrest of three American hikers
in the area of Kurdistan as indicative of a harder-line
stance vis-a-vis the United States.

RAFSANJANI: "SMART, THOUGHTFUL AND PRACTICAL"


3. (C) Gurbanov, who served as late Turkmen president
Niyazov's interpreter in official meetings in both Ashgabat
and Tehran with presidents Rafsanjani and Khatami, said he
had opportunity to observe Rafsanjani on a number of
occasions, and found him "extremely sharp, thoughtful, and
practical." In his interactions with the Turkmen president,
he was always a "man of few words," he said, and always chose
his words carefully.

IRANIAN AND TURKMEN PEOPLE: A SOURING OF RELATIONS

4.(C) Contrasting it with the relatively good relations that
the Turkmen and Iranian governments currently enjoy, as well
as the significant volume of natural gas that Iran imports
from Turkmenistan, Gurbanov described how soon after Iranian
merchants and others had arrived en masse in Turkmenistan in
the early 1990's to open businesses, Turkmen began to see
them as "opportunists" and unscrupulous in their business
dealings. He cited an example from 1993 where an Iranian
merchant, reportedly also a mullah who wore the turban and
robe customary of Shia clergy, purchased $180,000 of Russian
iron from a Turkmen firm. The firm, out of respect for the
"mullah's" religious affiliation, did not require payment
upon delivery of the shipment. The "mullah" thereafter
reportedly absconded and never paid the Turkmen. (Gurbanov
was involved in translation of the legal documents in the
case later filed with the Iranian Embassy in Ashgabat.) In
addition, a scandal occurred in the mid 1990's surrounding
the arrest in Iran of about sixty Turkmen women alleged to
have traveled there to work in the sex industry or to smuggle
drugs. All of the Turkmen women were eventually released,
but whereas travel between the two countries had been
relatively free prior to the incident, both sides now impose
a strict visa regime on nationals of the other, and Turkmen
women under 35 cannot travel to Iran unless accompanied by a
male family member.


ASHGABAT 00000993 002.2 OF 002



5. (C) COMMENT: Although he is more a linguistic scholar than
anything else, Gurbanov's 40 years of contact with Iranians
gives him increased understanding and a unique perspective
among Turkmen of his country's neighbor to the south. His
instincts vis-a-vis Iran are unfailingly on target. No
meeting with him is complete without his sharing withhis
interlocutor yet another volume of Persian poetry (his true
passion) or a book of Turkmen and Persian proverbs. END
COMMENT.
MILES