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      Our research results showed that Turkmenistan attaches particular importance to relations with neighboring countries with which it is associated with historical, political, economic and cultural ties. Turkmenistan considers relations with them, wide cooperation in all spheres as the most important guarantee of the preservation of its sovereignty and neutral status, the successful achievement of its foreign policy goals.

      The foreign policy situation of Turkmenistan is such that its interests are faced with the interests of not only neighboring countries in the region, but also non-CIS countries.

      In the current situation in Afghanistan, Turkmenistan cannot stand aside, since its security issues are directly related to the situation in Afghanistan, with which it borders. In this regard, Turkmenistan supports all projects related to improving the situation in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, as well as in order to improve the economic condition of Afghanistan, it designs and tries to implement projects in the energy and hydrocarbon spheres. Today, there is a project to deliver gas to the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, and later on its territory, laying pipes for the transportation of Turkmen gas to non-CIS countries. In this case, Afghanistan will receive cheap Turkmen gas, and it will also be possible to receive payment for the use of Afghan territory, that is, for transit. Official Ashgabat provides its airports to deliver humanitarian aid to Afghanistan, as well as to refuel aircraft that carry humanitarian aid. Turkmenistan connects the gas issue with the Russian side, which is very important for both states. Evidence of this is the controversial situations that have arisen recently.

      CHAPTER II. TURKMEN FACTOR IN THE SYSTEM OF INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS OF CENTRAL ASIA

      By the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Turkmenistan, of the state-forming features, had only a certain territory and poorly developed administrative power over it. All other important state-forming signs: a single socio-cultural space, general civil self-identification, a single legal consciousness of the population, self-sufficient economic and institutional infrastructure – were absent and are still under formation.

      The territorial integrity of the country has not yet been recognized by neighboring states at the official level, and territorial claims immediately appeared on the unofficial one against Turkmenistan. In particular, Uzbekistan did not particularly hide its claims on the border territory of the Tashauz and Charjou regions, inhabited mainly by ethnic Uzbeks. And this not all well-known fact in May 1992 became the subject of discussion at a closed session of the Parliament of Turkmenistan. Some concern of his leadership was also caused by political instability in some CIS states, which under certain circumstances could spread to the territory of Turkmenistan.

      In addition, according to forecast data, the bowels of Turkmenistan store almost a third of the world’s hydrocarbon reserves.

      Immediately after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it would be very reasonable to think of the Central Asian region as a single community with a single set of problems that could be solved using coordinated and integrated solutions. Now, ten years later, the situation has clearly changed. The development of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan went on different paths, each of these countries acquired its own appearance and developed a unique style of decision-making.

      The emergence of new states in Central Asia has fundamentally changed the political picture not only in the region, but also beyond its borders. If, as part of the Soviet Union, Central Asia was the periphery of a single geopolitical space, then with its collapse it moved to the center of political processes taking place in the vast expanses of Eurasia, and became the object of geopolitical confrontation between world and regional centers of power.

      The countries of the region almost from scratch began to search for their new identity and forms of domestic political structure, adequately reflecting the interests of society. In addition, they should have developed priority foreign policy directions, which, first of all, should have led to the creation of a system of sustainable state and regional security and determine the place and role of each state in the field of international relations.

      Attempts made within the CIS, the Central Asian Economic Union, the Shanghai Forum and other integration entities to create a regional security system that guarantees the military-political and socio-economic stability of the region have not yet yielded the expected results. The likelihood that such a system will appear in the near future is extremely small. The main reasons for this are the mutually supervising economic potential of the countries of the region, mutually exclusive tactics and a strategy for achieving their economic well-being, which prompts an independent search for foreign economic and foreign policy partners. At the same time, geopolitical unity is forgotten, the feasibility of consolidated actions aimed at ensuring regional security is ignored. Moreover, there are discrepancies in the assessment of security threats, with all the ensuing consequences.

      Turkmenistan, like other post-Soviet countries, became independent completely unexpectedly: neither its leadership nor the population even thought about the possibility of such a turn of events. Indicative in this regard is the result of the 1989 All-Union referendum. Then over 90% of the population of the republic voted for the preservation of the USSR and for staying in its composition.

      With such initial conditions for creating their own statehood, any sluggishness of political leadership could lead to the fact that the country would become an apple of discord between regional centers of power or turn into a raw material appendage of any of these centers of power.

      The idea of the Afghan route began in May 1992, during business consultations between President of Turkmenistan Saparmurad Niyazov and Prime Minister of Pakistan Nawaz Sharif during a working session of heads of government of IVF countries in Ashgabat. The result of this meeting was an agreement on the construction of a gas pipeline and a highway connecting the two countries through the territory of Afghanistan. Subsequently, at different levels, similar discussions took place in Pakistani cities on February 6—7 in Kuwait and November 28, 1993 in Islamabad.

      In April 1994, during a visit to Ashgabat, a delegation of the Pakistani Air Force, led by Vice Marshal Farug Usman Haider, reached an agreement on bilateral military cooperation and the Pakistani side took over the organization of the Turkmenistan Air Force Academy. In addition, Pakistan has pledged to train military specialists for Turkmenistan in its educational institutions.

      In March 1995, in Islamabad, Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto and president of Turkmenistan Saparmurad Niyazov signed a memorandum on the construction of a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan and on the restoration of the highway from Pakistani Khaman to the city of Turgundi on the Afghan-Turkmen border.

      Such intensive

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