Translated material
Persian-speaking leader
Tehran is ready to pay well for its ambitions
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's three-day tour of Turkmenistan and Tajikistan ended yesterday. Two rounds of negotiations between the Iranian president and Turkmenbashi, which took place on July 25-26 and began with mutual assurances that “there are no disagreements between the countries,” were held, according to the Turkmen leader, “in a constructive and principled manner.” “Everyone defended their position,” said Saparmurat Niyazov. The Turkmen and Iranian officialdom does not provide details.According to information received by Vremya Novostei from diplomatic sources in Ashgabat, the Iranian President asked Turkmenbashi not to offend Iranian businessmen and to allow them to resume cross-border trade, which Ashgabat abruptly curtailed several years ago. Then the Turkmen authorities canceled the simplified procedure for crossing the border for Iranian traders, prohibited them from converting currency and suspended construction of a diplomatic camp near the border.
On the main item on the agenda of the negotiations - the conclusion of a new agreement on the purchase of Turkmen gas by Iran, presumably starting in 2007, it was decided to create a joint commission. According to Ahmadinejad, “she will work within a month” on this document. In an ultimatum form, Turkmenbashi announced a selling price of at least $100 per thousand cubic meters to Russia and Ukraine, but he did not publicly talk about the new price for gas supplies to Iran. According to VN information from informed Turkmen sources, Ashgabat proposes to almost double this price - from 44 to 80-85 dollars per thousand cubic meters, while simultaneously increasing the volume of supplies from 8 billion cubic meters this year to 13 billion cubic meters in 2007. m.
In 2005, Turkmenistan entered into an agreement with China to export 30 billion cubic meters of gas annually for 30 years, starting in 2009. Such a prospect seems to Turkmenbashi to be the strongest trump card for creating competition among buyers. But for this it is necessary to build a gas pipeline through Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, which, as Ashgabat suggests, should be financed by the Chinese side. As Reuters reports, after negotiations with Ahmadinejad, Turkmenbashi told the Chinese ambassador in Ashgabat at a meeting with diplomats a characteristic phrase: “Give the pipeline faster.”
During the visit of the Iranian President to Dushanbe, he appeared as the leader of the Persian-speaking community of nations, which, in addition to Iran, includes Tajikistan and Afghanistan. On his first day in Dushanbe, Ahmadinejad held talks with Tajik President Emomali Rakhmonov, and yesterday they were joined by Afghan President Hamid Karzai. This meeting was supposed to take place back in January in Tehran, but then Karzai avoided participating in it.
“We are at home here in Tehran,” Ahmadinejad said after his conversation with Rakhmonov. The Iranian guest shared plans to create a common Persian-language TV channel for the three countries: “President Rakhmonov approved this idea, Hamid Karzai’s consent is needed.” Obviously, the author will finance the implementation of the idea. Tehran is already the largest investor in various areas of the Tajik economy.
Yesterday, the President of Iran took part in the opening ceremony of the 5-kilometer Anzob tunnel, 110 km from Dushanbe, located at an altitude of 2650 meters above sea level and connecting the capital with the north of the country. Tehran allocated $10 million in the form of a grant and $21 million in the form of a loan for its construction. Iran is ready to allocate another $60 million for the construction of another Chormagzak tunnel in the east of the republic. Taking into account that with the assistance of Iran the Sangtuda-2 hydroelectric power station is also being built, investments in which are estimated at $350 million, it becomes clear that Tehran’s ambitions for leadership in the Persian-speaking world is supported by solid financial injections. Reports from Ashgabat and Dushanbe say nothing about how Tehran’s partners feel about its nuclear ambitions.