Qishloq Ovozi (Archive)

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov is against cigarette smoking and his antismoking stance has led officials to adopt and strictly enforce new rules concerning tobacco use -- all reportedly with an eye on making the country tobacco-free by 2025.

Although Turkmenistan now has the lowest rate of tobacco use in the world according to the WHO, the restrictions on cigarettes must rough on many citizens of the country. If there is one thing I remember from my days in Turkmenistan it’s that the men smoke -- a lot.

There are differing accounts about the new antismoking rules. Some Iranian media were reporting in late January that smoking had been banned throughout Turkmenistan. It never actually reached that point but the lives of smokers have definitely become more complicated.

RFE/RL's Turkmen Service, known locally as Azatlyk, decided to do some investigating. The Turkmen government doesn't like Azatlyk so the country's people are understandably frightened to speak with us.

But Azatlyk found a Turkish truck driver named Murad who was happy to share his experience with Turkmenistan's antismoking regulations earlier this year.

"I walked out of a cafe in [the Caspian town of] Awaza and there was a market straight ahead of me," Murad said. "It was 10:30 at night. I'm walking toward the market with a cigarette in my hand. Before entering the market I put out my cigarette," Murad recounted. "At that moment someone called to me. I looked and it was a policeman."

Murad asked what was wrong, to which the policeman replied, "You're smoking."

'Did I Kill Somebody?'

The policeman took the bewildered Murad to the police station. Murad called home in Turkey to inform about his situation but his phone credit ran out before he could fully describe what was happening.

"We were in the police station and they [police] started writing out a report," Murad continued. "I asked: 'What happened? Did I kill somebody?'"

"You were smoking" a policeman shot back.

Informed by Murad's family, the Turkish Consulate in Turkmenistan called Murad on his phone and he explained what happened and that he was at the police station.

After the call, Murad asked again what he had done. "The police told me that people were passing by [when he was smoking]."

"I said, 'What people? It's the middle of the desert. What would people be doing walking in the middle of desert at 10:30 p.m.?'"

The policeman said, "You were smoking in the street. If you were smoking by your truck we still would have picked you up. You should smoke in your truck. But you can't smoke in your truck when it's moving, you have to stop."

Murad's frustration was growing. He asked if he could step outside the station for a few minutes.

"Where are you going?" the policeman asked.

"To smoke," Murad said.

"Why do you think you're in the police station in the first place?" the policeman asked.

Limits On Possessing Cigarettes

Another policeman who spoke Turkish arrived, apparently after the Turkish Consulate had contacted Turkmen authorities about Murad. This policeman asked Murad why he did not care about "our president's decree [on smoking in public]."

"I said, 'Look, that is your law, it doesn't apply to me. My president is in Turkey."'

The policeman asked Murad if people in Turkey could smoke in a public.

"Absolutely," he replied. Murad told the policeman in Turkey it was prohibited to smoke in enclosed areas. "In Turkey I can openly smoke in the street and no one bothers me but here you have the opposite law," he told the policeman.

The policeman reminded Murad he was in Turkmenistan and must obey the laws of the country.

"I said, 'Okay, I'll obey but look at the time, it's 10:30 at night, in the middle of the desert and I was going to a shop to buy something and I threw away my cigarette before I entered the market."

The police decided to release Murad and not file a report. Murad could have faced a fine of 70 manats [$18 at the official rate].

Murad shed some light on other aspects of the antismoking campaign. He said when he crossed into Turkmenistan the border guards told him an individual could enter Turkmenistan with no more than two cartons of cigarettes [equivalent to 400 cigarettes, usually].

He also said that usually when he was stopped by Turkmen traffic police they asked for a pack of cigarettes but Murad had learned you could get by with simply giving them a couple of cigarettes.

He also said it was possible to purchase cigarettes all over Turkmenistan and that the prices had gone down after spiking in January when Turkmen officials erroneously interpreted President Berdymukhammedov's comments on cigarettes as meaning authorities should crack down on cigarette sales.

Muhammad Tahir, the director of RFE/RL's Turkmen Service, contributed to this report.

The groundbreaking ceremony for the Central Asia-South Asia electricity transmission project, known as CASA-1000, is scheduled for May 12 in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe.

The leaders of Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Pakistan are coming to join Tajik President Emomali Rahmon for the event.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif were just in Central Asia in December, in Turkmenistan, for the “inauguration” of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline.

The two projects would be a significant financial benefit to exporters Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan and provide a much-needed boost to the power supplies in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India.

However, despite governmental and popular support in these countries for the projects, TAPI and CASA-1000 face significant obstacles and, in the end, it's possible neither will be realized.

To look at the two projects, what they mean for the region, and their chances for success, RFE/RL’s Turkmen Service, known locally as Azatlyk, conducted a Majlis, a panel discussion, to review the aims and possibilities of TAPI and CASA-1000.

Azatlyk Director Muhammad Tahir moderated the talk. From Glasgow, Dr. Luca Anceschi, professor of Central Asian studies at the University of Glasgow and one of the leading authorities on the TAPI project, participated. From New York, Casey Michel, author of many articles about Central Asia, including the recent report published in The Diplomat magazine -- CASA-1000 Groundbreaking Planned for May -- joined the discussion. In the studio in Prague we had Abubakr Siddique, author of the acclaimed book, The Pashtun Question, and also chief editor of RFE/RL’s Gandhara website, which is dedicated to Afghan and Pakistani affairs. I came up with a few comments also.

The CASA-1000 involves building a 1,222-kilometer power transmission line to carry some 1,300 MW of electricity from hydropower plants in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan into Afghanistan (300 MW) and on to Peshawar in Pakistan (1,000 MW). TAPI is supposed to bring some 33 billion cubic meters of gas annually along a pipeline some 1,735 kilometers long to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India.

Speaking about what CASA-1000 would mean for the importers, Siddique recalled, “We have seen in the past few years that Pakistan has really suffered because of chronic electricity shortages.” The result of that, Siddique said, is “a lot of industries closed, a lot of rioting...there were just [recently] protests in Peshawar and other cities because of power cuts.”

Siddique said besides bringing needed electricity to Afghanistan, CASA-1000 is “very important because it establishes Afghanistan’s status as a main transit country between Central Asia and South Asia.”

TAPI would help Afghanistan cement a role as a transit country. But it is the instability in Afghanistan that is often given as the primary reason neither TAPI nor CASA-1000 are possible. The panel discussed growing instability in Afghanistan in the areas along the two projects’ routes.

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But there are other problems, further upstream.

Financing, in the case of CASA-1000, is not an issue. Michel explained the project has "finances from Washington, London, and the World Bank" and at a cost of “a little over $1 billion right now, it’s not nearly as expensive as TAPI is.”

TAPI does cost more, as Anceschi said. “It’s going to be a very expensive proposition, talking about $10 billion, [and] we know that there is not a commercial champion coming from the Western world.”

No major financial organization or any individual country has shown an interest in providing the large funding needed for TAPI, or for operating the project.

In the absence of such a partner, Anceschi noted, “The commercial champion, if you want, the consortium leader, is Turkmengaz, which does not have either the money or the expertise to run this program."

Turkmengaz has pledged to fund 85 percent of TAPI and operate the project, despite the fact it is doubtful Turkmengaz has that much money and the company has no experience managing a multinational project.

Evidence of a lack of funding is already becoming clear. Since the end of April, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov made proposals to Qatar and Saudi Arabia to invest in TAPI, seeming to disregard the fact both are competitors for the same energy markets.

Since the launch of TAPI in December 2015 the Turkmen state media (the only media in Turkmenistan) has reported on progress in laying pipeline on Turkmenistan’s territory. But there is no evidence any work has been done and even these state media reports have failed to include images of construction work.

“I haven’t spoken or heard from anyone who can confirm that he or she actually saw the work progressing,” Anceschi said, adding that considering the low prices for gas on world markets, the window of profitability for TAPI seems to be closing rapidly.

CASA-1000 has the necessary money behind it to see the project realized. But Michel pointed out that as concerns the energy source, “We know where it’s coming from for TAPI, as pertains to CASA-1000, that’s one of the big questions.”

Hydropower plants (HPP) in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan will supply the electricity for CASA-1000. But there has been less precipitation in Kyrgyzstan in recent years and reservoirs there, particularly the massive Toktogul reservoir, are low on water. In 2013, Kyrgyzstan exported electricity to Kazakhstan. Kyrgyzstan is now importing electricity from Kazakhstan and also from Tajikistan. Tajikistan is exporting electricity to Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan in the summer.

In the winter, Tajikistan suffers from power shortages, even severe shortages when the winters are especially cold.

Tajikistan’s Nurek HPP will provide electricity to CASA-1000. But Nurek started operations in 1972 and is now in need of repair, which the cash-strapped Tajik government is unlikely to able to afford.

Two of Tajikistan’s newest HPPs are foreign-owned. Sangtuda-1 is also a contributor to the CASA-1000 transmission line. The Russian government and Russian companies own more than 70 percent of Sangtuda-1. When Russia funded and helped construct it, the agreement stipulated Russian ownership until Russian loans and expenses for Sangtuda-1 were repaid. Sangtuda-1 has never shown a profit due to the chronic debt of Tajik state power company Barki Tojik, which itself is short of money due to unpaid bills, mainly of state or state-sponsored organizations.*

So CASA-1000 has the financial backing, but it’s uncertain the necessary power source is there. TAPI has the power source but its funding is unclear.

The discussion ranged also to the potential role of Iran in this South Asian energy equation, insurgencies along the project routes, the individual policies of governments involved, and how these policies could complicate or derail entirely the projects and even further into other areas.

*Iran is the majority shareholder in Sangtuda-2, completed under similar repayment terms as Sangtuda-1. Sangtuda-2 is also in debt.