Iran’s relationships with the Central Asian states to its north are relatively new, since Moscow ran all of their capitals until 1991. Although Turkmenistan represented the largest section of the Soviet border with Iran, Tehran had few opportunities to deal with Ashgabat. The first president of independent Turkmenistan, Saparmurat Niyazov, came to power with little foreign policy experience, and insulated his personal rule over his country’s small population and substantial energy reserves by maintaining a closed, Soviet style society and a rigid policy of neutrality. Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, who put building ties with neighbors above exporting Khomeinist ideology, managed to befriend Iran’s new neighbor and establish an enduring energy trade. Today Iran continues a Rafsanjani-like policy of “regionalism” that emphasizes cultural ties, while Turkmenistan keeps muted such differences over history or the energy trade as may arise.
1. Iran’s food aid to newly independent Turkmenistan won it huge credit.
When the leadership of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics dissolved the Soviet Union in December 1991, it abandoned all the Soviet republics, including Turkmenistan, to their fates. Amid the economic chaos that afflicted all ex-Soviet republics, food supplies to Turkmenistan began to collapse. Iran stepped in to help. “Bread is seen as something symbolic,” says a Turkmen who recalls the period. “The country didn’t have anything to exchange for bread. It was shipped across the border from Iran in large quantities as a support to Turkmen people. That won Iran huge credit with the Turkmen government. Iran suddenly became a very good neighbor and a very good friend.”
2. Turkmenistan named a village after Rafsanjani.
In May 1992 Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani set out to expand relations with a new neighbor lacking diplomatic or foreign policy experience. “These states were thrown into the international arena overnight,” says Luca Anceschi of the University of Glasgow. “An easy way to get around the constraints of inexperience in diplomacy was sticking to neighbors.” Turkmenistan’s early foreign relations, he says, were limited to formalizing recognition and opening embassies, but in Iran’s case, they extended to banking and commerce. Iran launched a branch of the Iranian bank Saderat, as well as a center for trade. Rafsanjani also signed an agreement on energy cooperation with Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov. Niyazov cemented the friendship by naming a village after Rafsanjani. The inhabitants, he insisted, had requested the change themselves.
3. Niyazov’s personality cult recalled Khomeini’s.
Niyazov, who ruled Turkmenistan from 1990 until his death in 2006, established a personality cult that rule drew together elements from both Turkish and Iranian political history. He named himself Turkmenbashi, or “father of all Turkmen” in reference to Mustafa Kemal “Ataturk,” or “father of the Turks.” Like Ataturk, his rule was secular. But his leadership style also recalled Khomeini’s. He displayed portraits of himself throughout the country, and the most prominent Niyazov era slogan, “People, Homeland, Turkmenbashi,” Anceschi writes in his book Turkmenistan’s Foreign Policy, evoked the Islamic Republic. “The inclusion of the leader’s personality as one of the foundation stones of the new society established a particularly direct link with the most renowned political slogan of the Islamic Republic of Iran...God, Quran, Khomeini.”
4. Magtymguly Pyragy, Turkmenistan’s national poet, is buried in Iran.
Turkmenistan’s national poet-philosopher, Magtymguly Pyragy, was born in Gonbad-e Qavoos in northeastern Iran in 1733, and is buried in the Iranian village of Aktokay in Golestan Province. Turkmen revere him as the founder of modern Turkic language poetry. Following independence, Niyazov sought to develop Turkmen cultural identity by promoting Magtymguly’s writing alongside his own, while suppressing the works of Soviet Turkmen writers. Turkmen made pilgrimages to Magtymguly’s tomb in Iran even during Soviet times, but the Turkmenistan government now organizes annual delegations.
5. Iran and Turkmenistan dispute their Caspian Sea boundary.
Before the collapse of the Soviet Union, only the USSR and Iran shared the Caspian Sea. The Soviet Union, says Stephen Blank of the American Foreign Policy Council, had agreements with Iran over use of the sea, but these were complicated by the emergence of the new littoral states of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan. “Iran has been the main obstacle to any kind of multilateral demarcation of the Caspian,” he says, “Iran wants a bigger share because most of the oil and gas is located north and west of Iran, but the other four states are already exploring for energy within their waters.”
6. Iran imprisoned a member of opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi’s campaign team for “spying for Turkmenistan.”
In November 2009 Iranian authorities arrested Arash Saghar, a senior employee of Mir Hossein Mousavi’s presidential campaign headquarters, and imprisoned him in Ward 209 of Evin Prison, which is run by the Ministry of Intelligence. Saghar, who comes from the city of Gonbad-e Qavoos near the Turkmenistan border, had helped Mousavi’s campaign to communicate with the Sunni population in that region. Authorities accused Saghar of spying for Turkmenistan and sentenced him to eight years in prison.
7. Wikileaks revealed that Turkmen President Berdimuhamedov doesn’t like Iran.
In 2010 Wikileaks revealed US diplomats’ judgment, derived from a Turkmen source, that Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov didn’t like Iran. The cables also noted that Turkmenistan’s territorial disputes with Iran in the Caspian Sea had complicated Turkmen plans to collaborate with Russian companies to extract natural gas in the area. “I don’t think any of these Central Asian leaders really likes Iran,” Blank says. “Most of them are Sunnis, they suspect Iran’s motives, and they don’t like the idea of theocracy.”
If Berdimuhamedov really does dislike Iran, his prejudice is also likely cultural. According to one Turkmen, “Any Turkmen, especially in the region of Ahal, where the elite comes from, grows up with perceptions and legends that Iranians are extremely bad people, of them coming and abducting Turkmen. There is a long oral history from the 19th and early 20th century of raids on both sides of the border. It would not be a surprise at all if Berdimuhamedov doesn’t like Iran.”
8. Ahmadinejad gave Berdimuhamedov a plane for Norouz.
In 2011 Mahmoud Ahmadinejad planned an international Norouz gathering at Persepolis to receive 20 leaders from Middle Eastern and Central Asian states, including Turkmen President Berdimuhamedov. Ahmadinejad’s international affairs director announced that “Norouz diplomacy” would become a new Iranian diplomatic doctrine, even as conservative clerics deplored both the choice of location and the promotion of a pre-Islamic festival. Ahmadinejad moved the gathering to Tehran, and appears to have valued Berdimuhamedov’s attendance, since he gave him a new plane as a Norouz gift. Ahmadinejad attended Norouz celebrations in Ashgabat in 2013.
9. Iran claims it no longer needs Turkmen gas.
The energy trade has been the most enduring aspect of the Iran-Turkmenistan relationship. “It’s a great paradox that Iran has to get gas from somebody else,” Blank says, “but Iran’s gas reserves are in the south, Turkmenistan’s are in the north, and sanctions have made it very difficult for Iran to develop any kind of energy infrastructure [to connect the two].” The Iran-Turkmenistan gas trade has endured setbacks in recent years, with Turkmenistan initiating sudden shutoffs over payment disputes, and Iran’s oil minister Bijan Namdar Zanganeh saying that Iran only imports Turkmen gas to foster relations. Earlier this year Zanganeh warned that Iran could completely abandon Turkmen gas supplies. Zanganeh’s move, Blank says, may result from Iran’s expectation of continued sanctions relief, or it could be an attempt to gain political leverage.
10. Rouhani’s “regionalism” policy recalls Rafsanjani’s outreach to Iran’s neighbors.
President Hassan Rouhani says that stable relations with Iran’s neighbors are Iran’s primary national interest, and he promotes regional ties with the aim of opening markets and limiting foreign influence. Within Central Asia, argues former Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Maleki, Iran sees itself as part of a “Greater Khorasan” whereby Iran’s large northeastern province extends into a realm of common Persianate culture that encompasses Turkmenistan and the other former Soviet Central Asian states.
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