First Session of the Online Course, “Turkmenistan’s Policy of Permanent Neutrality” jointly organized by Embassy of Turkmenistan to Pakistan and Center for Global & Strategic Studies (CGSS), Islamabad

On 8th February 2021 the First Session of the Three-Day Online Course on “Turkmenistan’s Policy of Permanent Neutrality” was held. This course is jointly organized by Embassy of Turkmenistan to Pakistan and Center for Global & Strategic Studies (CGSS), Islamabad.
The Online Course aims to provide an opportunity to the students of Pakistan to get familiarized with various aspects of Turkmenistan’s Foreign Policy, Neutrality Policy of Turkmenistan, and Energy, Transport, and Economic Diplomacy of Turkmenistan.
The theme for the first session was, Analysis of Turkmenistan’s Foreign Policy and the speaker for this session was Mr. Yhlas Haldurdiyev, Lecturer, International University for Humanities and Development.
The session was commenced with the opening remarks of Ms. Palwasha Nawaz, Project Executive, CGSS. She stated that, it is for the first time that the government of Turkmenistan is collaborating to discuss various aspects of Turkmenistan’s Foreign Policy, Neutrality Policy of Turkmenistan, and Energy, Transport, and Economic Diplomacy of Turkmenistan.
During the session, Mr. Yhlas discussed the factors which influenced the Regional Policy of Turkmenistan. The highlighted factors included Transport Diplomacy, Energy Diplomacy, Water Diplomacy, etc.
According to Mr. Yhlas, transport diplomacy has a significant role to play in shaping the Regional Policy of Turkmenistan. Furthermore, Mr. Yhlas mentioned that Turkmenistan ranks 4th place in the international ranking in terms of proven natural reserves. Discussing the effective energy diplomacy of Turkmenistan, he highlighted three strings of Turkmenistan- Uzbekistan- Kazakhstan- China transnational gas pipeline.
He also emphasized the importance of TAPI (Peace Pipeline) and stated that this pipeline will begin in Turkmenistan and traverse Afghanistan to enter Pakistan. The capacity of TAPI pipeline is about 33 billion cubic meters per year.
The session was moderated by Ms. Maryam Raza, Research Associate, CGSS.
It is noteworthy that students from all across Pakistan are enrolled in this Online Course. This course will prove to be a milestone for the students of International Relations & related fields to understand the Neutrality Policy of Turkmenistan.