Akmurad Redzhepov, former Turkmen security chief
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The Luck of the Draw
// The price of the question
It seemed at first that they would never get the name of the new president of Turkmenistan right in Russia. But Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov has done what it takes to be remembered in the last few months. The answer to the question of who is Mr. Berdymukhammedov is being given every day. Mainly, he is someone who makes Gazprom nervous. Under Saparmurat Niyazov, relations between Turkmenistan and Gazprom were complicated but predictable. Company CEO Alexey Miller could always count on the status quo would be maintained in the end, with all the gas that Allah allows Turkmenistan to produce flowing to Russia. Russia would be the main buyer, Ukraine would not go without, and the price for that stability was acceptable.
With Berdymukhammedov is power for less than half a year, everything has become more complicated. The price he wants for Turkmen gas has yet to be determined. In essence, all of his visits abroad in the last three months have been an endless auction for the political price of Turkmen gas.
The monetary price for Turkmen gas will remain close to the same for Gazprom. With the management of the Turkmen gas economy being extremely inefficient, it cannot change much, and even a quick makeover of the economy will take years. Although the outcome of the first contact between President Berdymukhammedov and CEO Miller was that Turkmenistan would fulfill all of its existing contracts, Berdymukhammedov's further contacts – with Azeri President Ilham Aliev, who is gradually becoming the leader of the anti-Russian hydrocarbon opposition in the former Soviet Union; with the Ukrainians, Chinese and, this week, with Kazakh leader Noursultan Nazarbaev – show that he is not satisfied with Turkmenistan remaining a resource appendage to Russia. The very idea of telling Russian President Vladimir Putin that the Transcaspian gas pipeline was still topical, when the Russian president had come to Central Asia to campaign against it, was audacious. Is this only the beginning?
Berdymukhammedov's anti-Russian inclinations have been exaggerated. He is not well understood yet. If we understand him right, he is aware that Turkmenistan is a caricature of Russia for the rest of the world, and its energy policy, in spite of all “energy security” initiatives, remains more-or-less passive. Only by changing that relationship as fast as possible can Berdymukhammedov claim what Niyazov never could: to be more than an Eastern despot about whom there is nothing to say except in relation to natural gas, to be someone who has to be taken into account, if mainly in relation to natural gas, then not only. Niyazov liked to play solitaire. Berdymukhammedov seems to prefer poker. Russia may have to learn a new game.
Dmitry Butrin
All the Article in Russian as of May 30, 2007
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