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Table of Contents
Country Reports
TURKMENISTAN, Landmine Monitor Report 2005

Turkmenistan

Key developments since May 2004: Turkmenistan reported in April 2005 the completion of destruction of all its antipersonnel mine stockpiles, including those previously retained for training. In June 2004, Turkmenistan for the first time participated in Mine Ban Treaty intersessional meetings.

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. Turkmenistan has not passed any national legislation or other implementation measures as required by Article 9, but officials have stated that the existing criminal code could be used to prosecute violations involving possession, transfer, sale or use of explosives.[1]

Turkmenistan has yet to submit a full and appropriate Article 7 transparency measures report. On 6 April 2005, Turkmenistan submitted its third report, which took the form of a four-sentence statement. In June 2004, Turkmenistan’s Deputy Chief of Staff of the Ministry of Defense had told Landmine Monitor that Turkmenistan would provide a full Article 7 report.[2] Turkmenistan’s first two Article 7 reports were incomplete, did not provide information on all items specified in Article 7, and did not use the standard, voluntary reporting format.[3]

In June 2004, Turkmenistan for the first time participated in Mine Ban Treaty intersessional Standing Committee meetings, where it stated that it “spares no efforts seeking the implementation of the Convention’s requirements,” and provided an update of its stockpile destruction.[4] Turkmenistan participated in the First Review Conference of the Mine Ban Treaty in Nairobi in November-December 2004, with one representative from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and one from the Ministry of Defense. They did not make any statements. Turkmenistan did not attend the intersessional meetings in Geneva in June 2005.

Turkmenistan has stated several times that it has not produced antipersonnel landmines.[5] It is not believed to have exported mines in the past, nor to have used antipersonnel mines in the period from independence to its signing of the Mine Ban Treaty. Turkmenistan has stated that it is not mine-affected.[6]

Turkmenistan joined the Convention on Conventional Weapons and its Amended Protocol II on 19 March 2004. It did not attend the Sixth Annual Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in November 2004, and did not submit an Article 13 report for 2004.

Stockpiling and Destruction

In April 2005, Turkmenistan reported that it “has totally destroyed all anti-personnel mines,” including those that were retained for training purposes.[7] It is not clear when the destruction was completed. At the intersessional meetings in June 2004, Turkmenistan stated that “all the 9,200 mines remaining in Turkmenistan now for training purposes will be destroyed during the current year.”[8]

Turkmenistan inherited 6,631,771 antipersonnel mines from the Soviet Union in 1991.[9] This stockpile included 5,452,416 PFM-type scatterable mines in 75,718 KSF-type cassettes.[10] Destruction of the antipersonnel mine stockpile began in 1997. It was carried out at five separate destruction ranges, by open detonation for KPOM, MON, OZM, PFM and PMN series mines; POMZ and PMD series mines were dismantled.

In November 2001, Turkmenistan requested an extension of its 1 March 2003 stockpile destruction deadline until 2010, but was informed by States Parties that the treaty has no provision for such an extension. Subsequently, Turkmenistan notified the United Nations that it completed destruction of its antipersonnel mine stockpiles on 28 February 2003, just ahead of its treaty-mandated deadline. It also stated it was retaining 69,200 mines for training purposes [the actual total retained was 572,200 individual antipersonnel mines].[11] Other States Parties and the ICBL strongly criticized this large number of retained mines. On 11 February 2004, Turkmenistan said it had started to destroy 60,000 of the antipersonnel mines retained for training.[12] In June 2004, it announced it would destroy all of the retained mines.[13]


[1] Interview with Col. Chorly Myradov, Deputy Chief of Staff, Ministry of Defense, Geneva, 22 June 2004.

[2] Interview with Col. Chorly Myradov, Ministry of Defense, Geneva, 22 June 2004.

[3] Turkmenistan submitted its initial Article 7 report, which had been due on 27 August 1999, on 14 November 2001. The report consisted of a page of text and two stockpile tables. More than two years later, on 11 February 2004, it submitted an update, in the form of a letter, from the Permanent Representative of Turkmenistan to the United Nations in New York, to the Secretary-General of the United Nations. This consisted only of a statement announcing that Turkmenistan had started the process of destruction of 60,000 retained antipersonnel mines.

[4] 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,” Standing Committee on General Status and Operation of the Convention, Geneva, 25 June 2004.

[5] Most recently, it stated this in its June 2004 intersessional presentation and its April 2005 Article 7 report.

[6] Presentation by Turkmenistan, Standing Committee on General Status and Operation of the Convention, Geneva, 25 June 2004.

[7] Article 7 Report, 6 April 2005.

[8] Presentation by Turkmenistan, Standing Committee on General Status and Operation of the Convention, Geneva, 25 June 2004.

[9] 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.

[10] Turkmenistan reported a total of 102,628 PFM and KPOM cassettes. This equates to 5,560,016 individual mines. Turkmenistan cited a total stockpile of 1,174,383 antipersonnel mines in its first two Article 7 reports, counting cassettes as one unit, even though they contain multiple antipersonnel mines.

[11] 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.

[12] 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.

[13] Presentation by Turkmenistan, Standing Committee on General Status and Operation of the Convention, Geneva, 25 June 2004.