Summary

Non-signatory Turkmenistan has never commented on the humanitarian concerns raised by cluster munitions or elaborated its position on joining the Convention on Cluster Munitions. It last participated in a meeting of the convention in 2015. Turkmenistan was absent from the vote on a key United Nations (UN) resolution promoting the convention in December 2020.

Turkmenistan is not known to have used, produced, or exported cluster munitions, but it possesses a stockpile.

Policy

The Republic of Turkmenistan has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Turkmenistan did not participate in the Oslo Process that created the convention and has never made a public statement on cluster munitions.

Turkmenistan participated as an observer in the convention’s First Review Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia in September 2015, which marked its first and, to date, only attendance at a meeting of the convention. It was invited to but did not attend the first part of the convention’s Second Review Conference held virtually in November 2020.

In December 2020, Turkmenistan was absent from the vote on a key UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution that called on states outside the Convention on Cluster Munitions to “join as soon as possible.”[1] Turkmenistan has been absent from the vote on all previous UNGA resolutions promoting the convention since the annual resolution was first introduced in 2015.

Turkmenistan is party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is also party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW).

Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling

Turkmenistan is not known to have used or produced cluster munitions.

Turkmenistan possesses cluster munitions that it inherited from the break-up of the Soviet Union. It has never shared information on the types and quantities the stockpiled cluster munitions.[2] 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.[3] Turkmenistan reportedly received a transfer six Smerch rocket launchers from Russia in 2009–2010.[4] It also received ten secondhand Grad rocket launchers from Belarus in 2016–2017.[5]

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 not enacted new legislation specifically to implement the Mine Ban Treaty.

Turkmenistan has not attended any recent meetings of the treaty. It did not attend the Third Review Conference in Maputo in June 2014. Turkmenistan submitted its fifth Mine Ban Treaty Article 7 report on 7 June 2010, but has not submitted an updated report since.

Turkmenistan is party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons (CCW) and its Amended Protocol II on landmines and Protocol V on explosive remnants of war. Turkmenistan is not party to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Production, use, transfer, and stockpiling

Turkmenistan has never used, produced, exported, or imported antipersonnel mines. It inherited a stockpile of 6,631,771 antipersonnel mines from the former Soviet Union. This stockpile included 5,452,416 PFM type scatterable mines in 75,718 KSF type cassettes.[1] 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.[2]

The destruction of Turkmenistan’s stockpile of antipersonnel mines was completed on 11 November 2004.[3] 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.[4]