Turkmenistan Features - The Times Of Central Asia

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GDP

Turkmenistan Reports 6.3% GDP Growth for the First Half of 2026

Turkmenistan's economy grew by 6.3% in the first six months of 2026 compared with the same period last year, according to Turkmen state media. Among Central Asian countries that had published first-half figures, Turkmenistan's reported growth rate was higher than Kazakhstan's but lower than those of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. By the end of the first half of 2026, Kazakhstan's economy had grown by 4.1%. Kyrgyzstan's economy expanded by 11.9%, reaching 960 billion som ($11 billion), with construction posting the fastest growth at 69.6%. Tajikistan reported growth of 8.2%, while Uzbekistan reported GDP growth of 8.5%. Turkmenistan's official figures should be treated with caution. The International Monetary Fund projects growth of about 2.4% for 2026 and says it uses its own GDP estimates because the official narrative is difficult to reconcile with other available data. Official data shows growth of 10.4% in transport and communications, 8.5% in trade, 8.4% in services, 6.7% in construction, 2.7% in industry, and 2% in agriculture. Retail trade turnover increased by 10.1%, while foreign trade turnover rose by 7.5%. The fuel and energy sector continues to play a central role in Turkmenistan's economy. The country possesses some of the world's largest natural gas reserves, and hydrocarbon production and exports remain its principal source of foreign currency earnings and a defining feature of the national economy. Construction is another major pillar, driven largely by state spending. Capital investment totaled 18.6 billion manats ($5.3 billion) in the first half of 2026, up 4.3% year on year and equivalent to 16.5% of GDP. Of this, 45.1% went to production facilities and 54.9% to social and cultural buildings. The government is also seeking to produce more construction materials and other goods domestically, reducing the need for imports. For the remainder of the year, the government says it will focus on completing ongoing construction projects, increasing capacity utilization at industrial plants, maintaining the stability of the manat, developing the tax system, preparing next year's state budget, and improving the use of budget funds. Earlier, The Times of Central Asia reported that Turkmenistan sees the proposed Trans-Caspian Gas Pipeline and the Southern Gas Corridor as a key route for diversifying its natural gas exports to Europe, as Ashgabat seeks to reduce its dependence on a limited number of export markets.

Regional Cooperation

Central Asia and Azerbaijan: What the Region’s Leaders Agreed at Issyk-Kul

The Kyrgyz resort town of Cholpon-Ata, on the shores of Lake Issyk-Kul, briefly became Central Asia’s political capital as it hosted a series of high-level meetings, including bilateral talks between the presidents of Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, the state visit of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, and the informal Consultative Meeting of the Heads of State of Central Asia and Azerbaijan. Only a few years ago, such a format would have seemed unlikely. Today, however, regional leaders are discussing joint railway projects, energy security, transport corridors, investment, and foreign-policy coordination rather than managing old disputes. The agreements reached in Cholpon-Ata suggest that the consultative format is gradually evolving from a platform for political dialogue into a mechanism for practical regional cooperation. From Conflict to Alliance Ahead of the informal multilateral meeting, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov and Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev held bilateral talks that set the tone for the broader regional meeting. Relations between the two countries now stand in sharp contrast to the situation sixteen years ago. Following the ethnic violence in southern Kyrgyzstan in June 2010, relations between Bishkek and Tashkent entered one of their most difficult periods since independence. The agenda between the two neighbors has since changed dramatically. Speaking in Cholpon-Ata, Mirziyoyev said relations between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan had reached “a historic peak.” Bilateral trade has increased almost tenfold in recent years, reaching $1.2 billion last year. The two countries now have around 450 joint ventures, operate a joint Development Fund to support cooperative projects, and have established 15 air routes and five bus services linking their cities. Mirziyoyev described the China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan railway as one of the most important joint initiatives between the two countries, arguing that the project would reshape transport links across Eurasia. “This railway will fundamentally change the geopolitical landscape. Those who understand what it took to make this happen know what a major achievement it is,” Mirziyoyev said. The talks concluded with the signing of a Treaty on Allied Relations between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. The two sides also exchanged several bilateral documents, including agreements covering sections of their common border and the joint use of the Chashma spring. A Broader Regional Agenda While the Japarov-Mirziyoyev talks focused primarily on bilateral relations, the informal Consultative Meeting of the Heads of State of Central Asia and Azerbaijan broadened the discussion to regional integration, transport connectivity, energy security, and foreign-policy coordination. Opening the meeting, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov said one of the clearest results of closer regional cooperation had been the Central Asian countries’ growing support for one another on the international stage. As an example, he cited the region’s joint support for Kyrgyzstan’s successful bid for a non-permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council for the 2027-2028 term. Japarov also revived the idea of introducing a single tourist visa for foreign visitors traveling across Central Asia, proposing that the region’s foreign ministries intensify consultations on the initiative. Azerbaijan’s participation as a full member gave the meeting additional significance. Baku joined the consultative format as a...

Caspian Sea

As Two Wars Reach the Caspian, Central Asia’s Middle Corridor Holds

On July 25, two wars met in waters that Central Asian governments had tried to keep apart. Ukraine reported successful long-range strikes in the Caspian Sea. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the targets included vessels involved in carrying military cargo from Iran and a warship. Tehran said an Iranian commercial vessel had been struck, killing one sailor and injuring another, and accused Kyiv of trying to widen the war. It remains unclear whether the vessel identified by Iran was among the targets described by Zelenskyy. Diplomacy produced a limited off-ramp. On July 28, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha told his Iranian counterpart, Abbas Araqchi, that the strike on the Iranian ship was unintended. Both governments said they wanted to avoid further escalation. The call reduced the immediate risk of retaliation, but it did not remove the new danger. The Caspian is now one of the places where Russia’s war against Ukraine and the war involving Iran, Israel, and the United States intersect. Central Asia is exposed through the infrastructure and trade routes linking them. A “Sea of Peace” Under Pressure Turkmenistan responded to the incident with unusually direct language. Its Foreign Ministry called attacks on vessels in the Caspian “inadmissible” and described the waterway as a “sea of peace, harmony and good-neighborliness.” Ashgabat did not name Ukraine or endorse Iran’s account. Its restraint was characteristic, but the public criticism was unusual. Turkmenistan’s permanent neutrality normally produces guarded statements during external conflicts. The intervention showed that Ashgabat viewed the attack as a challenge to the regional order. Turkmenistan faces Iran across a 1,148-kilometer land border and the southern Caspian. Turkmenbashi port is also central to its plans for a larger role in Eurasian trade. The principle is set out in the Convention on the Legal Status of the Caspian Sea, signed in Aktau in 2018. Its text calls for the peaceful use of the sea, prohibits the use or threat of force, and bars armed forces belonging to non-Caspian states. The convention has not entered into force because Iran has not ratified it. Its provisions were designed to govern relations among the five littoral states. They do not address a long-range strike carried out by a non-littoral state. But modern drones can cross distances that once provided strategic shelter. A landlocked sea can no longer be assumed to sit beyond the reach of surrounding wars. The Iran-Russia Link Ukraine has clear military reasons to look toward the Caspian. Iran has supplied Russia with drone technology used against Ukrainian cities and infrastructure. The sea also provides a direct commercial route between Iranian ports and Russia’s Volga region. Kyiv now treats vessels on that route carrying military cargo as part of Russia’s military logistics. Iran described the vessel struck on July 25 as civilian. The dispute over the ship’s cargo is central because commercial and military supply chains can overlap. A vessel may be civilian by flag and registration while carrying goods that Ukraine considers part of Russia’s war effort. That uncertainty reaches beyond...

Podcast

Pannier and Hillard’s Spotlight on Central Asia: New Episode Out Now

As Managing Editor of The Times of Central Asia, I’m delighted that, in partnership with the Oxus Society for Central Asian Affairs, from October 19, we are the home of the Spotlight on Central Asia podcast. Chaired by seasoned broadcasters Bruce Pannier of RFE/RL’s long-running Majlis podcast and Michael Hillard of The Red Line, each fortnightly instalment will take you on a deep dive into the latest news, developments, security issues, and social trends across an increasingly pivotal region. This week, the team covers a heatwave sweeping across Central Asia, anti-Taliban forces briefly seizing a district headquarters in a worrying sign of cracks in the Taliban's control, a shootout between different branches of Kyrgyzstan's security forces near the Uzbek border, promising new talks between Turkmenistan and Georgia, and a major shake-up inside Uzbekistan's presidential security services. Before then turning to our main story this week, where a growing number of countries are working with Central Asian governments to forcibly return Central Asian nationals, often into incredibly dangerous situations. - Steve Swedlow (Associate Professor of the Practice of Human Rights) - Bakhtiyor "Bakh" Safarov (Central Asia Consulting)

Internet Restrictions

A Signal from Uzbekistan: How Turkmen Border Villages Reach the Outside World

In Diýýar, a village in northern Turkmenistan close enough to catch Uzbekistan’s mobile signal, a foreign SIM card inserted into a small Wi-Fi router can turn a barely functioning 2G connection into usable home internet. In early July, police reportedly entered around ten households in the village, identified Uzbek-connected routers, and confiscated the SIM cards. Similar inspections have been under way across close to 60 settlements in Dashoguz Province, according to Radio Azatlyk, the Turkmen Service of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. The campaign covers parts of Shabat and Görogly districts, including Kirov, Diýýar, Bedirkent, Aýlak, and Nyýazow, in areas where Uzbek mobile signals cross the border. The Internet Across the Border What the authorities are removing is more than a foreign phone number. Residents told Radio Azatlyk that Turkmen Telecom internet is either unavailable or extremely slow in several border villages. TMCell, the mobile brand operated by the state-owned Altyn Asyr network, often provides only 2G service, while home Wi-Fi is unavailable. Households able to obtain an Uzbek SIM card use networks such as Ucell and Uztelecom, placing the card in a router that supplies internet throughout the home. Residents said YouTube and Instagram become accessible through these connections, although TikTok and many foreign websites still require a VPN. One resident described the Uzbek service as “300 times” faster than the Turkmen alternative, a personal estimate rather than a measured comparison. The cards arrive through an informal chain of traders and other residents who regularly cross into Uzbekistan. A Dashoguz source said they sell for around 200 manats and that sellers also help buyers complete the registration. The arrangement depends on geography, personal contacts, and a signal strong enough to reach across the frontier. One local source said many people from Dashoguz work abroad, including in Russia, Poland, and Germany. For households with relatives overseas, a usable connection can provide a direct link beyond the village. It also opens independent news sites and social platforms that remain blocked or unreliable on Turkmen networks. Residents confronted by police sometimes say they use the internet only to pass the time, reportedly hoping to avoid a fine. A Signal Treated as Suspicion The reported consequences vary. Some first-time offenders receive a warning, particularly when they cannot afford a penalty. Others are threatened with fines of up to 50,000 manats or imprisonment. That amount is about $14,300 at Turkmenistan’s official exchange rate and roughly $2,500 using the widely reported informal rate. Residents said officers described the use of foreign telecommunications services as possible espionage on behalf of another country. The reports cite no court case or published provision under which simply possessing an Uzbek SIM card constitutes espionage. The threat itself, however, raises the stakes around an ordinary household connection. Police and security officers reportedly do not use specialist equipment to locate the routers. Local sources said they rely instead on informants in villages, schools, and local administrations. They allegedly gather information through schoolchildren as well. Residents who travel regularly to Uzbekistan, including small...

Middle Corridor

Daines’s Tour Signals an Emerging U.S. Caspian Corridor Strategy

Senator Steve Daines’s July 7–9 visit to Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan brought three bilateral relationships into a single, compressed Caspian itinerary. In Baku, he met President Ilham Aliyev and senior economic and foreign-policy officials; in Astana, President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev and representatives of government and business; and in Ashgabat, President Serdar Berdimuhamedov, Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov, and Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov. Although official accounts treated each stop separately, the sequence suggests a regional pattern whose significance exceeds any single announcement. Daines had already supplied the clearest public articulation of the governing logic in his June 11 speech to the Caspian Policy Center’s Trans-Caspian Forum. There he joined Central Asia and the South Caucasus in a discussion about westward connectivity, investment, and supply-chain diversification. Daines identified critical minerals, energy, telecommunications, and physical and digital infrastructure as fields for public and private investment, while calling for TRIPP, a Caspian gas interconnector, and a continuous route from Central Asia to Western markets that avoids Russia and Iran. Together, these sectors give the proposed route both commercial and strategic content, though not the form of a single named program. Read against the June speech, Daines’s itinerary marks an emerging corridor-centered effort aligned with the Trump administration’s broader Caspian engagement, even without a formal declaration of purpose. Azerbaijan Anchors the Corridor’s Western Connections Baku gives the corridor logic its strongest institutional and bilateral footing. Aliyev and Daines discussed Azerbaijan’s geopolitical role, regional peace, and TRIPP’s importance for transport connectivity. Separate meetings with Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and Economy Minister Mikayil Jabbarov extended the agenda to economic cooperation. With SOCAR President Rovshan Najaf, Jabbarov and Daines took up the Middle Corridor, energy, transport, digital development, and critical-mineral extraction and processing. Across the meetings, political, commercial, and technical portfolios converged around Azerbaijan’s place at the corridor’s western Caspian egress. The U.S.–Azerbaijan Strategic Partnership Charter, signed in February, places the Middle Corridor alongside energy, trade, transit, digital connectivity, and critical-mineral movement. It identifies Azerbaijan as an energy, transport, trade, and logistics hub for the Caspian region. Working groups regularize cooperation on trade, energy, connectivity, digital development, and security. The charter also calls for project lists and implementation roadmaps within three months of signing and for meetings at least once a year. In June, the first Azerbaijan-U.S. Economic Dialogue began translating that direction into an operational agenda. Government, financial institutions, and private-sector participants met on regional connectivity and transit, energy security, investment, artificial intelligence, and digital infrastructure. The agenda connected the Middle Corridor and TRIPP with logistics, the Southern Gas Corridor, critical mineral supply chains, transport and energy investment, and the Alat Free Economic Zone. Closing documents covered digital infrastructure, technology transfer, and industrial solutions. The workstreams are clear, but the consolidated project portfolio and its financing have yet to take public form. Azerbaijan’s role also rests on physical infrastructure already in use. The established Middle Corridor crosses Kazakhstan and the Caspian before passing through Azerbaijan and Georgia, then onward toward Türkiye or Europe via the Black Sea. At Alat, 70 kilometers...