Turkmenistan
Mine Ban Policy
Turkmenistan signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 3 December 1997 and ratified it on 19 January 1998, becoming a State Party on 1 March 1999. It has never used, produced, exported, or imported antipersonnel mines. Turkmenistan inherited a stockpile of antipersonnel mines from the former Soviet Union. It has not enacted new legislation specifically to implement the Mine Ban Treaty. Turkmenistan submitted its fifth Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 report on 7 June 2010 for the period 2004–2010 but did not submit an Article 7 report in 2011 or 2012. States Parties are required to submit an Article 7 report on 30 April of each year.
The destruction of Turkmenistan’s stockpile of 6,631,771 antipersonnel mines was completed on 11 November 2004.[1] While most of the stockpile was destroyed prior to its March 2003 deadline, it later destroyed 69,200 PFM-type mines (572,200 individual antipersonnel mines) that it had initially planned to retain for training and development purposes.[2]
Turkmenistan did not attend any Mine Ban Treaty meetings in 2011 or the first half of 2012. In December 2011, Turkmenistan voted in favor of UN General Assembly resolution 66/29 on antipersonnel mines.
Turkmenistan is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons and its Amended Protocol II on landmines and Protocol V on explosive remnants of war.
[1] CCW Amended Protocol II Article 13 Report, 21 May 2009, p. 3. Translation by Landmine Monitor.
[2] For details see, Landmine Monitor Report 2005, pp. 593-594.
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
Turkmenistan has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It did not participate in the Oslo Process that created the convention and has never attended a meeting on cluster munitions or made a public statement on the issue.
Turkmenistan is party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is also party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.
Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling
Turkmenistan is not known to have used, produced, or exported cluster munitions. It inherited a stockpile of cluster munitions from the Soviet Union but has not made a public declaration regarding its cluster munition stockpiles.[1] It is reported to possess Smerch 300mm, Uragan 220mm, and Grad 122mm unguided surface-to-surface rockets, but it is not known if these include versions with submunition payloads.[2] Turkmenistan ordered six additional Smerch rocket launchers in 2008 and is reported to have acquired them in 2009–2010.[3]
[1] As part of its Mine Ban Treaty obligations, Turkmenistan destroyed a stockpile of remotely delivered antipersonnel mines, specifically 5,452,416 PFM-type scatterable mines contained in 75,718 KSF-type cassettes, which are sometimes identified as cluster munitions. See ICBL, Landmine Monitor Report 2004: Toward a Mine-Free World (New York: Human Rights Watch, October 2004), p. 830–832. Turkmenistan may also have a sizeable stock of cluster munitions, as the main ammunition storage facility for Soviet combat operations in Afghanistan was located in Charjoh (now Turkmenabad), according to Turkmen military officers in April 2004.
[2] International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2011 (London: Routledge, 2011), p. 279; and Colin King, ed., Jane’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal, CD-edition, 10 January 2008 (Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group Limited, 2008).
[3] Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, “Arms Transfers Database.” Recipient report for Turkmenistan for the period 1950–2011, generated on 4 May 2012.