Turkmenistan
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
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 2021.
Turkmenistan is not known to have used, produced, or exported cluster munitions, but 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 at the convention’s First Review Conference in Dubrovnik, Croatia in September 2015. This marked its first and, to date, only attendance at a meeting of the convention. Turkmenistan was invited to, but did not attend, the convention’s Second Review Conference held in November 2020 and September 2021.
In December 2021, Turkmenistan was absent from the vote on a key United Nations 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 every vote on the annual UNGA resolution promoting the convention since it was first introduced in 2015.
Turkmenistan is a State 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 after the breakup of the Soviet Union. It has never shared information on the types and quantities in its stockpile.[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 six Smerch rocket launchers from Russia in 2009–2010.[4] It also received 10 Grad rocket launchers from Belarus in 2016–2017.[5]
[1] “Implementation of the Convention on Cluster Munitions,” UNGA Resolution 76/47, 6 December 2021.
[2] As part of its Mine Ban Treaty obligations, Turkmenistan destroyed a stockpile of remotely-delivered antipersonnel landmines, specifically 5,452,416 PFM-type scatterable mines contained in 75,718 KSF-type cassettes, which are sometimes identified as cluster munitions. See, ICBL, Landmine Monitor Report 2004: Toward a Mine-Free World(New York: Human Rights Watch, October 2004),pp. 830–832. Turkmenistan may also have stocks of cluster munitions from when the main ammunition storage facility for Soviet combat operations in Afghanistan was located in Charjoh (now Turkmenabad), according to Turkmeni military officers in April 2004.
[3] International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), The Military Balance 2011 (London: Routledge, 2011), p. 279; and Colin King, ed., Jane’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal, CD-edition (Surrey: Jane’s Information Group, January 2008).
[4] Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), “Arms Transfers Database,” recipient report for Turkmenistan for the period 1950–2011, generated on 4 May 2012.
[5] SIPRI, “Arms Transfers Database,” recipient report for Turkmenistan for the period 2010–2020, generated on 14 June 2021.