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.