Turkmen Leader Discuss Partnership With Foreign Delegations

President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow of Turkmenistan has held a series of separate meetings with foreign officials and businessmen arrived in Asgabat on the occasion of Independence Day, Turkmen TV Altyn Asyr channel reported on 26 October.

In a meeting with Ukraine’s foreign minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the Turkmen leader touched upon the outstanding construction of a 3km-long railway bridge across the Amu Darya river in eastern Turkmenistan. “Ukraine has resumed the construction of the bridge,” the report quoted Yatsenyuk as saying, and noting that the Ukrainian government has taken strict control over the implementation of the project.

At a meeting with the deputy head of Russia’s Gazprom company, Valeriy Golubev, “the sides noted the successful implementation of a bilateral contract on the export of Turkmen gas to the Russian Federation for the next 25 years,” the report said. It added that the Gazprom had invested some 20m dollars in the construction of a new Russian-language school in Asgabat.

In a series of bilateral meetings, Berdimuhamedow also met the visiting head of Russia’s Itera gas company, Turkmenistan’s long- standing partner in the gas export sphere. “The sides exchanged views on Itera’s participation in exploratory work in the Turkmen shelf of the Caspian as well as in the construction of a new carbamide plant in Turkmenbasy town and a recreation centre for Itera’s staff on the Caspian,” the report said.

The same day, Berdimuhamedow also met senior executives of Russia’s Soyuzneftegaz and British-Russian TNK-BP company, Ukraine’s machine engineering plant and Belgium-based energy companies, as well as heads of Turkish firms.

The head of Turkey’s Erol Tabanca company, interviewed following his meeting with Berdimuhamedow, said that his company had been assigned with a task of building a special memorial to mark the 20th anniversary of Turkmenistan’s independence in 2011.

(The TV reports on Berdimuhamedow’s meetings with the foreign guests lasted for some 30 minutes; no further processing is planned)

Originally published by Turkmen TV Altyn Asyr channel, Asgabat, in Turkmen 1600 26 Oct 07.

(c) 2007 BBC Monitoring Central Asia. Provided by ProQuest Information and Learning. All rights Reserved.