Turkmenistan announced plans on Monday to build a naval base on its Caspian Sea coast, an area at the centre of a territorial dispute with Azerbaijan over oil and gas fields.

The dispute between Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan could jeopardise Turkmen plans to join the EU-sponsored Nabucco gas pipeline that bypasses Russia because gas from Turkmenistan would need to pass Azerbaijan to enter the pipeline.

''We are already buying military ships equipped with missiles,'' President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov said in televised remarks to the national security council. ''Naval exercises should be held regularly''.

Turkmenistan, Central Asia's biggest gas exporter, and Azerbaijan are at loggerheads over a number of large oil and gas blocks in the Caspian Sea.

Berdymukhamedov last month ordered his government to take the dispute to an international court.

Iran, another energy-rich Caspian state, has opposed dividing the sea into sectors, an approach favoured by ex-Soviet republics Russia, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.

The Turkmen leader made it clear however that the navy would not be used to settle such disputes and would instead protect his nation from external threats.

''We have no territorial claims,'' he said. ''There are international terrorist groups which, it should be said, would like to disturb the Turkmen people's peaceful life.''

Berdymukhamedov did not specify how large the Turkmen navy would be but said it should be complete by 2015.

Iran's ambassador to Turkmenistan Mohammad Reza Forqani said President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is to visit Turkmenistan in January to open Iran-Turkmenistan gas pipeline.

The pipeline is spread through Dowlatabad-Sarakhs-Khangiran from Turkmenistan to Iran.

Ahmadinejad is officially invited by Turkmen counterpart Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, Forqani told Iranian Students News Agency (ISNA).

Turkmenistan signed a 14-billion dollar contract with Iran in 2006 to pump gas to the country, he said adding the contract was put into practice in 2008.

Turkmenistan is exporting 25 million cubic meters of natural gas to Iran daily, he said adding the amount will reach 14 billion cubic meters through opening the pipeline in early January.

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov will lobby for a role in the Nabucco pipeline for Europe during his official visits to Sofia and Ankara.

Turkmenistan sits on some of the largest natural gas deposits in the world. Berdimuhamedov is expected to search for ways for his country to join Nabucco during his regional tour, the Trend news agency reports.

Nabucco would run from the Caspian region through Turkey to Austria along a route through Bulgaria, Romania and Hungary. Regional hosts and interested parties expressed their support for Nabucco during a summit in Ankara in July.

Financial obstacles and a lack of firm supply commitments, however, drag on the development of the USD 10.3 billion project.

Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan are at odds over the territorial boundaries of the Caspian Sea, with concerns raised over operations in disputed resource fields. Observers say political will for Nabucco trumps regional concerns over lingering rows regarding Caspian boundaries.

Turkmenistan had a longstanding gas relationship with Russia. Ashgabat backed away from that relationship following an April disruption at a regional pipeline that was blamed on Russian gas giant Gazprom.

Europe hopes to diversify an energy sector dependent on Russian gas. More than 80 percent of all Russian gas bound for European customers travels through Soviet-era pipelines in Ukraine.

Turkmen authorities have annulled a recently approved rule that requires students to obtain permission from several state agencies if they want to study abroad, RFE/RL's Turkmen Service reports.

The Turkmen State Immigration Agency says students must now only be registered at the Education Ministry, which will make it much easier for them to study abroad.

The strict requirements were approved by the government on August 1.

Local residents say the cancellation of those strict regulations came after extensive coverage by international media about them.

There are some 6,000 Turkmen students studying in Kyrgyzstan, and there are thought to be several thousand others studying in other foreign countries.

President Dmitry Medvedev said Monday that Russian companies should develop offshore oil production in the Caspian Sea and build more ports and upgrade shipyards on the shore as a way of boosting the regional economy.

“Think about achieving these goals,” Medvedev told the chief executives assembled for a meeting of his advisory State Council in Astrakhan, including Gazprom chief Alexei Miller and LUKoil chief Vagit Alekperov.

The Caspian Sea area is home to economically depressed regions such as Dagestan and the Astrakhan region.

Alekperov told the meeting that LUKoil expected to start pumping oil from its Caspian field, called Yury Korchagin , next year. It is also developing another offshore field with Gazprom.

Medvedev also called for a quicker division of the sea by the five littoral countries that include Iran, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan. Medvedev announced that he would meet with the heads of the other Caspian states “in the near future.” He didn’t elaborate, but his visit to Turkmenistan is scheduled for next month.

Russia and the other four littoral states have been negotiating for 12 years to divide the energy-rich sea but haven’t been able to reconcile their proposals.

“I will put it bluntly: These talks haven’t gone ahead easily. Sometimes they simply don’t move forward,” Medvedev said, Interfax reported.

Priorities of cooperation between Turkmenistan's government and U.N. agencies accredited in the country are put down in the United Nations framework programme for Turkmenistan development assistance (U.N. Development Assistance Framework) signed on Saturday for the period from 2010 to 2015, national television said.

The distinctive feature of the programme is that it is aimed at solution of issues of peace, stability and security, Turkmen Foreign Minister Rashid Meredov noted at the signing ceremony.

Much attention will be paid to the implementation of projects to combat drug traffic, organised crime, terrorism and other challenges constituting real threat to the humanity, he added.

The document covers also such strategic areas of cooperation as education, public health, ecology and the social sphere.

The programme is the culmination if the constructive joint work and the exchange of views, U.N. permanent coordinator in Turkmenistan Richard Young noted.

Particular attention in the joint work will be paid to cooperation for further democratization of the Turkmen society and firm establishment of the priorities of human rights and the rule of law, he added.

Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov of Turkmenistan and his Kazak counterpart Nursultan Nazarbaev agreed dates in a recent phone call.

In early September, Berdymuhammedov will travel to Aktau in southeast Kazakstan to attend the closing stages of the Silk Road car rally running from Russia to Central Asia.

Nazarbaev will pay a return visit in December for the launch of a 7,000-kilometre pipeline taking Turkmen gas to China, via Uzbekistan and Kazakstan.

The recently reelected president of neighbouring Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is to visit Turkmenistan in December.

In a phone conversation with Turkmen president Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov on August 12, Ahmadinejad agreed to come for the official opening of a pipeline running from the gas fields of Dovletabad to the Iranian town of Khangiran.

Iran currently buys eight billion cubic metres of gas a year from the Korpeje gas field in western Turkmenistan. The new pipeline will run from gas fields in southeastern Turkmenistan, increasing expert volumes by six billion cu m.

Iran and Turkmenistan agreed to increase gas purchases in mid-July, and there are plans to increase the volume to 20 billion cu m a year in future.

NBCentralAsia experts note that the new pipeline comes at a time when Turkmenistan is looking for alternatives to Russia, which currently buys the bulk of its gas. In recent months Ashgabat has been at odds with the Russian firm Gazprom, which wants to pay less given the fall in world energy prices.

Turkmenistan produces about 80 billion cu m of gas annually, of which 20 billion cu m is consumed domestically and the rest is exported.

The ceremony of signing joint declaration in establishing diplomatic relations between the Republic of Iraq and Turkmenistan took place on Friday 31 July, 2009. The declaration was signed at the Headquarters of the Permanent Mission of the Republic of Iraq in New York by the Permanent Representative of Iraq Ambassador Dr. Hamid Al Baiati and Turkmen side by the Permanent Representative Ambassador Aksoltan Ataeva.

After the signing of the joint declaration the Mission sent an official note to the UN Secretary General on 3rd.Aug.2009 with a copy of the joint declaration to be deposited in the Secretariat General of the United Nations.

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov invited his counterpart in Uzbekistan to attend the inauguration of a transnational gas pipeline to China.

Berdimuhamedov held a telephone conversation with Uzbek President Islam Karimov on the occasion of the upcoming 18th anniversary of Uzbek independence from the Soviet Union.

Both leaders expressed gratification with the level of trade and other bilateral relations, the Turkmen government said.

The Turkmen leader extended an invitation to his Uzbek counterpart to take part in the inauguration of the Turkmenistan-China gas pipeline, which will cross Uzbek territory.

The Chinese National Petroleum Corp. signed two agreements with Turkmenistan in 2007 to share production and sales for natural gas using the transnational pipeline.

Turkmenistan will deliver around 1.1 trillion cubic feet of natural gas to China through the pipeline each year for the next 30 years.

Berdimuhamedov in April ordered the government to «take all measures» to ensure the construction on the pipeline is completed by the end of the year.

The Uzbek leader said the gas pipeline represented a «bright symbol» of bilateral relations enjoyed by the two Central Asian neighbors.

Turkmen President Kurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has ordered the state airline to buy three Boeing jets, according to a decree published on Monday.

The gas-rich Central Asian state will pay a total of 120 million USD for the Boeing 737-700 planes, the document said. It gave no other details of the deal.

Turkmenistan, unlike many other former Soviet states, has used its natural gas export revenues to replace its entire fleet of ageing Russian-made jets with Western-assembled aircraft since gaining independence from Moscow in 1992.

Turkmenistan plans to boost natural-gas supplies to Iran to 20 billion cubic meters a year as it builds a new pipeline to diversify exports away from Russia.

The neighbors last month agreed to construct the 30.5- kilometer (19-mile) link, which would increase exports of Turkmen gas to Iran by 75 percent to 14 billion cubic meters a year, the Turkmen government said on its Web site yesterday.

Europe and China are among those seeking gas supplies from Turkmenistan, whose reserves tripled last year to make it the fourth-largest holder of the fuel. The country is building pipelines after almost all its exports were halted in April following an explosion on the main link to Russia, which buys the fuel for resale to Europe.

The pipeline from the Dovletabat field to the Iranian border with initial design capacity of 12.5 billion cubic meters a year will start operating in December, the government said.

A link to China will ship 40 billion cubic meters of gas annually and be completed later this year. The European Union is looking to Turkmenistan to fill Nabucco, a pipeline that will bring Caspian gas to Europe, bypassing Russia.

Turkmenistan blamed Moscow-based gas exporter OAO Gazprom for causing the April blast by abruptly reducing pressure on the link, and subsequently called for new pipeline routes. Russia rejected the accusation.

Turkmenistan produced 66.1 billion cubic meters of gas last year and holds the world’s fourth-largest reserves after Russia, Iran and Qatar, according to BP Plc’s Statistical Review of World Energy. The country tripled its proved gas reserves to 7.94 trillion cubic meters last year, according to BP.

Demarcation of disputed waters in the Caspian Sea between Ashgabat and Baku should not delay potential joint development of oil and gas fields, officials say.

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov ordered a national investigation to examine Azeri claims in the Caspian Sea with the intent on taking the matter to the International Court of Arbitration.

Berdimuhamedov claims Baku started developments at oil and gas fields and plans to explore additional deposits in disputed waters.

Sabit Bagirov, the former president of the State Oil Co. of Azerbaijan Republic, said it is unlikely the dispute will be resolved at the international level, the Trend news agency in Azerbaijan reports.

Bagirov notes that Baku has come forward with offers to jointly develop several fields in territorial border regions despite the disputed claims.

Baku offers a durable infrastructure with the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and its related arteries, which may help Ashgabat overcome technological setbacks, he said.

Meanwhile, development of major Caspian fields, notably the Azeri-Chirag-Guneshli complex, by international energy majors positions the region as a vital energy partner.

The Caspian border row could present another challenge to the 10.3 billion USD Nabucco gas pipeline for Europe. The project reached a milestone this month with a signing ceremony in Turkey, though the pipeline lacks firm commitments from potential suppliers.

Though Azerbaijan appears ready to supply gas to Nabucco, Turkmenistan is expected to provide the bulk of the 1.1 trillion cubic feet of gas slated for the pipeline each year.

The leaders of Russia and Ukraine are to visit Ashgabat in September, the state news agency Turkmenistan reports.

President Gurbanguly Berdymuhammedov invited Dmitriy Medvedev and Viktor Yuschenko to visit when he spoke to them by phone earlier this month.

Medvedev’s visit is expected to coincide with the final day of the Silk Road 2009 rally, which will see cars race through Russia, Kazakstan and Turkmenistan between September 5 and 13.

Yuschenko, meanwhile, will attend the opening ceremony of a railway bridge across the Amu Darya river, which is being built by Ukrainian construction workers.

Since Turkmenistan is a major exporter of gas to both countries, energy is likely to top the agenda of both sets of talks.