Turkmenistan Not the Island of Stability It Claims to Be, Mikhaylenko Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, March 7 – No former Soviet republic receives less media attention than Turkmenistan, a country whose problems are typically ignored or assumed to be under control by its dictator.  But because of its economic collapse, Maksim Mikhaylenko says, the risk that it will descend into the kind of instability ISIS forces will be able to exploit is growing rapidly.

            The Ukrainian commentator writes in Kyiv’s Delovaya stolitsa that the regime’s pompous celebrations of itself are not only deceptive but are adding to Turkmenistan’s economic problems, problems now so severe that the World Bank and IMF have warned that they do not exclude popular explosions (dsnews.ua/vlast_deneg/mezh-dvuh-ogney-kogda-v-turkmenistan-pridet-igil-05032019220000).

            In fact, Mikhaylenko says, “the situation in the country really is passing out of control.” Lines are growing at state stores, prices on the black market are going up astronomically, and there is already a form of food rationing in some regions. Foreign debt has skyrocketed, and the national currency faces collapse with unofficial rates now many multiples of official ones.

            There are many causes for this disaster, including the decline in oil and gas prices; but all of them have been exacerbated by “the cult of personality” of the leader and his “intolerance to any opinion but his own.” As a result, he has made mistakes; and he no longer can use gas money to buy off the population.

            Instead, he has cut services for the Turkmen people and increased the prices they must pay for housing as well as food.  People are now hording gasoline and food, fearful that the situation will get even worse in the coming months.  And they are angry about the regime’s penchant for giant projects rather than focusing on helping the population.

            “Turkmenistan does not publish data on unemployment,” Mikhaylenko says; but according to unofficial sources, it now has reached 60 percent.” Many would like to emigrate, which might take some pressure off the regime, but it does everything to can to prevent them from leaving.

             And in a series of actions that look like “economic suicide,” Ashgabat had gotten into arguments with the main purchases of petroleum – Russia, Iran, and China” and insisted on a proud isolation from everyone else.  That not only means its foreign debt is up but that no one is prepared to help Turkmenistan in the event of problems – unless they are offered something.

            This drive to economic suicide has been paralleled by a political one, the Ukrainian analyst says. Ashgabat has provoked conflicts even with those who want to help it. And all have turned away except for Russia which remains convinced that it will be in a position to pick up the pieces when Turkmenistan collapses.

            “For a very long time,” Mikhaylenko says, “Turkmen society has been considered politically indifferent. The secular opposition in the republic was destroyed long ago;” and as a result, the only possible channels for dissent are religious ones, where extremists are playing an ever-larger role.

            Many of those are linked to the Afghan opposition; and despite the widespread assumption that the radicals there want to move into Central Asia via Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, there are growing indications that some of them want to create “a corridor for penetrating Central Asia precisely via Turkmenistan,” with whom even Kabul has “territorial disputes.”

            This threat is even larger because in addition to the Taliban, there are from 5,000 to 10,000 ISIS veterans who are talking about establishing a Mari vilayet in an industrial region of Turkmenistan. If they do, then they are likely to trigger an explosion in Turkmenistan as a whole, something the current regime can neither cope with on its own or count on allies to help.