Key developments
since March 1999: Turkmenistan has not submitted its Article 7 report that
was due by 27 August 1999.
Turkmenistan was the first country in Central Asia to sign the 1997 Mine Ban
Treaty. It signed on 3 December 1997 and was the fourth country globally to
ratify on 19 January 1998. However, it has not yet enacted national legislation
implementing the treaty, nor has it submitted its Mine Ban Treaty Article 7
report that was due by 27 August 1999.
The Turkmenistan government hosted the first regional conference on landmines
in Central Asia in Ashgabat in June 1997. However, Turkmenistan did not attend
regional landmine meetings in Moscow in 1998, in Tbilisi in 1999, or in Minsk in
2000. The government did not send a delegation to the First Meeting of States
Parties in May 1999 in Maputo, Mozambique, nor has it participated in any of the
Mine Ban Treaty intersessional meetings taking place in Geneva. Turkmenistan
voted in favor of the December 1999 UN General Assembly resolution supporting
the ban treaty, as it had in 1997 and 1998. Turkmenistan is not a party to the
1980 Convention on Conventional Weapons, nor a member of the Conference on
Disarmament.
Turkmenistan is not believed to have ever produced or exported landmines.
Turkmenistan acknowledges that it "has a small stockpile of
landmines,"[1]likely inherited
from the USSR.
The government has declared that there are no uncleared landmines in
Turkmenistan.[2] There are no
reports of landmine casualties. Turkmenistan is not known to have contributed
to any international mine action programs.
Landmine Monitor 2000 inquiries for new or updated information sent to
Turkmenistan ministries and departments and to the Turkmenistan Embassy in
Moscow have gone unanswered.
[1] Essen Aidogdyev, Counsellor, Permanent
Mission of Turkmenistan to the United Nations, New York, letter to Human Rights
Watch, N051/'99, 18 March 1999. [2]
Ibid.
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