Might there be a little friction in Turkmen-Uzbek ties?
Uzbek state television recently reported on food shortages in Turkmenistan. The thing is, Turkmen state media have not only avoided mentioning those shortages for many months, they even attempted to mask them just one day before the Uzbek reports by suggesting there was great availability of food in Turkmenistan.
Strange to think it would be possible to convince hungry people there is actually a cornucopia of food out there just by showing a few Potemkin markets on TV.
But on June 20, Turkmen state television aired a report that claimed, “Full shelves [at shop locations] bear witness to the creation in the country of food abundance."
Someone in Uzbekistan must have missed an e-mail from Turkmen authorities. On June 21, three of Uzbekistan’s state channels, including Yoshlar TV, reported on shortages of bread in Turkmenistan’s Dashoguz and Mary provinces and said there were long lines to purchase bread when it was available.
"The Turkmen people are experiencing severe economic hardships," the report said.
Yoshlar can be watched in northern areas of Turkmenistan.
RFE/RL’s Turkmen Service, known locally as Azatlyk, has been reporting about the growing scarcity of basic goods in Turkmenistan for almost two years. While it seems to be true that there is food available, it is prohibitively expensive for many people in Turkmenistan.
The state previously subsidized basic goods like flour, sugar, and cooking oil, but Turkmenistan is suffering through the hardest economic times in its nearly 27 years of independence.
Azatlyk just reported that a 45-kilogram sack of flour was selling in Mary Province for 200 manats (which is $57 at the official rate of 3.5 manats to the $1). Unemployment is estimated to be well over 50 percent in Turkmenistan.
Azatlyk and many other media outlets have been covering Turkmenistan’s woes.
Why Uzbek state TV chose to do so is unclear. The two governments have had fairly good relations since Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov became Turkmen president in late 2006. In fact, until Shavkat Mirziyoev took over as Uzbekistan’s president in September 2016, Turkmenistan was really the only Central Asian neighbor with which Uzbekistan enjoyed good ties.
Turkmenistan may have another Uzbek concern besides the state-TV reports.
RFE/RL’s Uzbek Service, known locally as Ozodlik, received a message from an ethnic Uzbek in Charjou (now officially called Turkmenabat) before the Uzbek TV broadcasts. We cannot reveal the sender's name because what he wrote would almost surely land him in a Turkmen prison.
This writer mentioned the “severe economic crisis in Turkmenistan that has enveloped all areas of the livelihood of the people of the country.” But he claimed that minorities, and he specifically named Uzbeks, were falling victim to a “nationalist ideological struggle of official (titular) clans with non-Turkmen peoples."
He went on to say that previously “they permitted us to decide which language to study in, what dresses and braids our girls could wear, and which tyubeteyki (traditional caps of the region) our men could wear..."
But, he continued, “Now they decide for us how much money we should send to our children studying abroad [and]...which TV [channel] to watch."
He said Uzbeks in Turkmenistan hoped the Berdymukhammedov visit to Uzbekistan and to regions bordering Turkmenistan in April would have helped resolve some of these problems.
"Nothing was done. We don’t know how to reach official Tashkent so they will finally see their brothers, us, the Uzbeks of Turkmenistan," the writer said.
This is a nightmare scenario for Uzbekistan’s Central Asian neighbors.
Uzbekistan’s government has never shown much interest in the ethnic Uzbek diaspora in neighboring Central Asian countries, but ethnic Uzbeks are the largest minority group in all of the Central Asian states except Kazakhstan, where ethnic Uzbeks are a distant second behind Russians. There are no reliable official figures on Uzbeks in Turkmenistan, but the percentage of ethnic Uzbeks among Turkmenistan’s population is probably a bit less than 10 percent. (It is about 15 percent in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.)
But since the five Central Asian republics became independent in 1991, there has been a fear that Uzbekistan, with by far the largest population, might forge stronger bonds and side with their ethnic cousins in neighboring countries.
There are still unsettled sections of Central Asian borders, and the ethnic Uzbek populations tend to live near borders with Uzbekistan.
Uzbek state TV has not yet reported on any crisis situation for ethnic Uzbeks in Turkmenistan. But Uzbek TV's report about Turkmenistan’s economic plight was unexpected.
Mirziyoev is still riding a wave of popularity, at home in Uzbekistan and internationally, related to his apparent efforts to bring his country out of the semi-isolation it had sunk into under his predecessor. If sometime in the future he is faced with hard times and fading popular support, the plight of Uzbeks in neighboring countries could provide a distraction and a rallying point for Uzbeks in Uzbekistan.
