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Turkmenistan Buys Russian Weapons
Turkmenistan has signed a contract for the purchase of six Smerch multi-launch rocket systems. It is the first major arms deal Ashgabat has made in a decade and its first major deal with Russia. The value of the contract may be as high as $70 million. Two complexes will be delivered this year, and the remainder next year. A source at Motovilikhinskie Zavody states that the weapons will have a 90-km. range.
In 2001, Sergey Chemezov, then first deputy general director of Rosoboronexport, and Saparmurat Niyazov, then president of Turkmenistan, agreed to an exchange of arms for gas. Ukraine and Georgia have carried on that tradition, repairing and modernizing the country’s Su-25 and MiG-29 planes. Kiev has also committed itself to providing Turkmenistan with $500 million in weaponry. Turkmenistan is also angling military cooperation with both NATO and Iran, from which it has purchased several patrol boats.
Experts tie the arms deal with Russia to negotiations over the Prikaspiisky natural gas pipeline. Moscow was able to convince Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan to build the pipeline through their countries last year. The pipeline is needed by Russia to maintain its control over energy flows to Europe. Since then, however, the United States and Europe have been offering new Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov higher prices for its gas, to be transported through the Nabucco and Transcaspian pipelines, to be built by Europe without the financial involvement of the Central Asian countries.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of June 24, 2008
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