Turkmenistan's Permanent Neutrality
The United Nations General Assembly recognised Turkmenistan as a permanently neutral state in December 1995, which has never been done for anyone else. The resolution passed unanimously, and Turkmenistan wrote the status into its constitution and built a foreign policy of declining to join anything. The practical content is real. It has stayed out of military alliances and the collective security arrangements of the region, has kept out of the Nagorno-Karabakh and Tajik conflicts, provided a venue for intra-Afghan talks, and refused to allow foreign bases on its territory including during the campaign in Afghanistan next door. The context is gas. Turkmenistan holds among the largest reserves in the world with a small population and no route to a market that does not cross somebody else's territory, and neutrality is a way of selling to Russia, Iran, China and possibly Europe without being obliged to any of them. It is also a way of avoiding scrutiny. Saparmurat Niyazov, who ruled from 1985 to 2006 as Turkmenbashi, built one of the most complete personality cults on record — a gold statue that rotated to face the sun, months of the year renamed after his family, a book he wrote made compulsory in schools and driving tests — and the neutrality doctrine insulated all of it. The country has among the most closed information environments in the world. His successor renamed the months back and kept everything else. 12 December is a national holiday. Neutrality of this kind is worth comparing with the Swiss and Austrian versions, which are guaranteed by treaty and accompanied by substantial armed forces. Turkmenistan's rests on a General Assembly resolution and on nobody having much reason to invade it.
- Year: 1995 CE
- Category: Diplomatic
