LM Report 2004

Turkmenistan

Key developments since May 2003: Turkmenistan announced its intent to retain 69,200 antipersonnel mines for training purposes in February 2003, but a year later reversed this position, pledging to destroy all the mines by the end of 2004. When the destruction is complete, Turkmenistan will have destroyed the second highest number of any State Party: 6.6 million antipersonnel mines, including 5.45 million PFM type mines. Turkmenistan submitted its second Article 7 report, albeit incomplete, in February 2004. In June 2004, Turkmenistan for the first time participated in Mine Ban Treaty intersessional meetings, where it gave assurances of its commitment to the treaty and its intention to fulfill all obligations.

Key developments since 1999: Turkmenistan did not attend any annual or intersessional Mine Ban Treaty meetings of States Parties until June 2004. Turkmenistan submitted its initial Article 7 transparency measures report in November 2001, more than two years late and without all the required information, did not submit annual updates in 2002 or 2003, and provided another incomplete report in February 2004. Turkmenistan has not passed any national legislation or other implementation measures as required by Article 9. After first asking for an extension of its stockpile destruction deadline, Turkmenistan announced it completed destruction of its antipersonnel mine stockpile in February 2003, in advance of its 1 March 2003 deadline. However, it stated it would retain 69,200 mines for training. The ICBL criticized this as a possible violation of Articles 3 and 4 of the Mine Ban Treaty. Turkmenistan subsequently decided to destroy all of its mines, by the end of 2004.

Mine Ban Policy

Turkmenistan signed the Mine Ban Treaty on 3 December 1997, ratified on 19 January 1998, and the treaty entered into force for the country on 1 March 1999. At the time, Turkmenistan was the only country in Central Asia to participate fully in the Ottawa Process and to sign the treaty, and it hosted the first regional meeting on landmines in Central Asia in its capital of Ashgabat in June 1997. It was the fourth country to ratify the treaty.

After this, however, Turkmenistan did not attend any annual or intersessional Mine Ban Treaty meetings of States Parties until June 2004, when two Ministry of Defense representatives participated in the intersessional Standing Committee meetings. The senior official expressed the country’s commitment to the Mine Ban Treaty: “We did not sign just for the sake of signing. The treaty is not just a piece of paper. There is a strong commitment from our government, and from our great President, and we will stick to the provisions 100 percent.”^[1]

Turkmenistan has voted in favor of every annual UN General Assembly resolution supporting the Mine Ban Treaty since 1997 (it was absent for the 1996 pro-ban vote), including UNGA Resolution 58/53 on 8 December 2003.

Turkmenistan has not passed any national legislation or other implementation measures as required by Article 9. Representatives from the Ministry of Defense, while acknowledging that legal issues are not part of their responsibility, commented that the existing criminal code could be used to prosecute violations involving possession, transfer, sale or use of explosives.^[2]

Turkmenistan submitted its initial Article 7 transparency measures report, which had been due in August 1999, on 14 November 2001.^[3] On 11 February 2004, it submitted an update for 2003.^[4] Both reports are incomplete, failing to provide information on all items specified in Article 7, and neither uses the standard reporting format. In June 2004, Turkmenistan’s Deputy Chief of Staff of the Ministry of Defense stated that Turkmenistan will provide full Article 7 reports in the future.^[5]

Turkmenistan has stated several times that it has not produced antipersonnel landmines.^[6] It is not believed to have exported mines in the past, or to have used antipersonnel mines in the period from independence to its signing of the Mine Ban Treaty.

On 19 March 2004, Turkmenistan joined the Convention on Conventional Weapons and its Amended Protocol II on landmines.

Stockpile Destruction and Mines Retained

Turkmenistan inherited 6,631,771 antipersonnel mines from the Soviet Union upon its collapse in 1991.^[7] This stockpile included 5,452,416 PFM type scatterable mines in 75,718 KSF type cassettes.^[8] The presence of such a large stockpile of antipersonnel mines in Turkmenistan was the result of the main ammunition storage facility for Soviet combat operations in Afghanistan being located in Charjoh (now Turkmenabad), according to military officials.^[9]

Destruction of the antipersonnel mine stockpile began in 1997 and was carried out at five separate destruction ranges in Turkmenistan by open detonation for KPOM, MON, OZM, PFM, and PMN series mines; POMZ and PMD series mines were dismantled.^[10] One person was killed and several others were injured as the result of an accident with an unexploded KPOM-2 mine during stockpile destruction in June 1999.^[11] Turkmenistan did not request or receive any financial assistance to destroy its antipersonnel mine stockpile, but some training in ammunition disposal was provided by the United States.^[12]

In its initial transparency report submitted in November 2001, Turkmenistan requested an extension of its 1 March 2003 stockpile destruction deadline until 2010, but no provisions for such are made in the Mine Ban Treaty.^[13] Turkmenistan notified the United Nations that it completed destruction of its antipersonnel mine stockpiles on 28 February 2003, except for 69,200 mines retained for training purposes [the actual total retained was 572,200 individual antipersonnel mines].^[14] Turkmenistan’s decision to retain such a large number of mines was roundly criticized in the international community and engendered claims that Turkmenistan is “in violation of a core obligation of the treaty.”^[15]

In a dramatic reversal announced 11 February 2004, Turkmenistan said it had started to destroy 60,000 of the antipersonnel mines retained for training and invited interested parties to observe the destruction.^[16] On 8 April 2004, a four-person ICBL delegation traveled to a military facility 30 kilometers southwest of Turkmenabad (formerly Charjoh) in the Karakum desert to observe the destruction of 842 OZM-72 mines, with 18 MON-200 and 18 MON-50 mines used as a donor and initiation charges.

At the intersessional Standing Committee meetings in June 2004, Turkmenistan stated, that it, “spares no efforts seeking the implementation of the Convention’s requirements” and that “all the 9,200 mines remaining in Turkmenistan now for training purposes will be destroyed during the current year.”^[17]

Turkmenistan’s Antipersonnel Mine Stockpile and Destruction, 1997-2004^[18]

Mine Type	Mine Stockpile as of 21 December 1997	Mines Destroyed: in 1997-2003	Retained Mines Destroyed by June 2004	Retained Mines to be Destroyed by December 2004
PFM-1S	4,701,960	4,197,960	432,000	72,000
PFM-1	750,456	750,456	0	0
KPOM-2S	36,400	28,400	4,000	4,000
KPOM-2	71,200	71,200	0	0
PMN	31,454	31,254	0	200
PMN-2	182,657	172,657	9,000	1,000
PMN-3	29,993	29,993	0	0
OZM-72	620,845	600,845	18,000	2,000
MON-50	83,422	78,422	4,000	1,000
MON-90	5,842	842	4,000	1,000
MON-100	42,960	32,960	9,000	1,000
MON-200	14,410	4,410	9,000	1,000
POMZ-2M	52,072	52,072	0	0
POMZ-2	4,200	4,200	0	0
PDM-6M	3,900	3,900	0	0
Totals	6,631,771	6,059,571	489,000	83,200

Landmine Problem and Casualties

Turkmenistan reported, “There are no mined areas on the territory of Turkmenistan.”^[19] The only known mine survivors in Turkmenistan are veterans of Soviet forces that fought in Afghanistan.^[20]

[1] Interview with Colonel Chorly Myradov, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Ministry of Defense, Geneva, 22 June 2004.
[2] Ibid; interview with Major Gurbandurdy Yangibaev, Acting Head of Engineer Forces, Geneva, 22 June 2004.
[3] The report was originally due 27 August 1999. The report consisted of a page of text and two stockpile tables. Much of the information required by Article 7 was not included in the report.
[4] Letter from the Permanent Representative of Turkmenistan to the United Nations in New York to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, 11 February 2004. The report consists only of a statement announcing that Turkmenistan started the process of destruction of 60,000 retained antipersonnel mines. Again, standard Article 7 reporting forms were not used.
[5] Interview with Colonel Chorly Myradov, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Ministry of Defense, Geneva, 22 June 2004.
[6] Letter No. 037/2003 from the Permanent Representative of Turkmenistan to the United Nations in New York to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, 19 March 2003; Delegation of Turkmenistan, “Presentation on the implementation by Turkmenistan of the Convention on the prohibition of the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of anti-personnel mines and on their destruction,” presented at the Intersessional Standing Committee on General Status and Operation, Geneva, 25 June 2004.
[7] Turkmenistan cited a total stockpile of 1,174,383 antipersonnel mines in its Article 7 reports, counting cassettes as one unit, even though they contain multiple antipersonnel mines.
[8] Turkmenistan reported a total of 102,628 PFM and KPOM cassettes. This equates to 5,560,016 individual mines. See table below.
[9] Interviews with officers from the Ministry of Defense of Turkmenistan, Turkmenabad, 8 April 2004.
[10] Interview with Colonel Chorly Myradov, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Ministry of Defense, and Major Gurbandurdy Yangibaev, Acting Head of Engineer Forces, Geneva, 22 June 2004; Delegation of Turkmenistan, “Presentation on the implementation by Turkmenistan of the Convention on the prohibition of the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of anti-personnel mines and on their destruction,” presented at the Intersessional Standing Committee on General Status and Operation, Geneva, 25 June 2003.
[11] Interview with Major Gurbandurdy Yangibaev, Acting Head of Engineer Forces, Turkmenabad, 8 April 2004. Major Yangibaev was wounded in this incident.
[12] Interviews with officers from the Ministry of Defense of Turkmenistan, Turkmenabad, 8 April 2004.
[13] The treaty has a provision allowing States Parties to ask for an extension of the deadline for mine clearance, but not stockpile destruction. Turkmenistan reported destroying more than 400,000 mines from 1997 to October 2001, then nearly 700,000 additional mines by the end of February 2003. Again, this counts cassettes as a single mine.
[14] Letter No. 037/2003 from the Permanent Representative of Turkmenistan to the United Nations in New York to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, 19 March 2003. For consistency in this report, Landmine Monitor is citing the 69,200 figure used by Turkmenistan. However, when accounting for its stockpile, Turkmenistan counted and reported the number of PFM and KPOM cassettes in its stockpile, not the number of individual mines. The actual total for 69,200 retained mines equates to 572,200 individual antipersonnel mines.
[15] ICBL Statement on Article 3, Standing Committee on General Status and Operation of the Convention, Geneva, 16 May 2003. The ICBL said retention of such a number could violate both Articles 3 and 4 of the Mine Ban Treaty.
[16] Letter from the Permanent Representative of Turkmenistan to the United Nations in New York to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, 11 February 2004.
[17] Delegation of Turkmenistan, “Presentation on the implementation by Turkmenistan of the Convention on the prohibition of the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of anti-personnel mines and on their destruction,” presented at the Intersessional Standing Committee on General Status and Operation, Geneva, 25 June 2003.
[18] This table is primarily based on information provided by the delegation from Turkmenistan at the June 2004 Intersessional Standing Committee meeting in Geneva. Landmine Monitor has replaced the numbers of PFM and KPOM cassettes (delivery canisters) with the number of individual antipersonnel mines in each cassette. Each KSF cassette possessed by Turkmenistan contained 72 PFM antipersonnel mines. Each KPOM cassette contains 4 antipersonnel mines.
[19] Delegation of Turkmenistan, “Presentation on the implementation by Turkmenistan of the Convention on the prohibition of the use, stockpiling, production, and transfer of anti-personnel mines and on their destruction,” presented at the Intersessional Standing Committee on General Status and Operation, Geneva, 25 June 2004.
[20] Interview with Colonel Chorly Myradov, Deputy Chief of Staff of the Ministry of Defense, and Major Gurbandurdy Yangibaev, Acting Head of Engineer Forces, Geneva, 22 June 2004.