Today, at the invitation of Prime Minister of the Republic of India Narendra Modi, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov took part in the First Central Asia – India Summit held via the digital system. It is noteworthy that this year 2022 is marked by an anniversary date for the states of the region and India – the 30th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations. 

As for the relations between Turkmenistan and the Republic of India, they are initially distinguished by a friendly, mutually respectful and trusting nature. An important milestone in the history of Turkmen-Indian cooperation was the state visit of President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov to this country in 2010, which laid a solid foundation for the further development of productive partnership across its spectrum.

In the modern era, the traditional interstate dialogue, based on deep historical roots and mutual goodwill, is successfully developing, including on a multilateral basis, and in particular, in the format of “Central Asia – India”. A clear evidence of this is the participation of President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov in the current summit, intended to give regional and bilateral cooperation a qualitatively new dynamic and content.

The agenda of the Summit, which was also online attended by the heads of other states of the Central Asian region – President of the Republic of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, President of the Kyrgyz Republic Sadyr Japarov, President of the Republic of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon and President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Shavkat Mirziyoyev, included priority areas of effective cooperation, taking into account the existing solid potential and long-term prospects. Along with this, topical aspects of regional and global issues have become the subject of focused attention. 

Opening the Summit, Prime Minister Narendra Modi cordially welcomed the leaders of the region countries and thanked everyone for participating in the current meeting, emphasizing the commitment of the Republic of India to a dynamic partnership with Central Asia. As it was noted, the Central Asian region occupies a key place in the Indian vision of integrated and broad neighborliness. In this context, mutual cooperation between India and Central Asia is an important factor in ensuring regional security and stability. Today’s Summit is aimed to make interstate cooperation more effective, which will provide a basis for regular partnership at various levels.

Then the head of the Indian Government gave the floor to the meeting participants, who made welcoming speeches.

Addressing the Prime Minister of the Republic of India and the heads of the region’s states, the President of Turkmenistan, first of all, thanked Mr. Narendra Modi for the invitation to participate in the First Central Asia – India Summit.

This year, the leader of the nation Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov emphasized, is significant for the countries of Central Asia and India. Thirty years ago, diplomatic relations were established between our states.

“A new stage has begun in the development of centuries-old ties between our peoples. Together we have started to establish broad political, trade, economic, cultural and humanitarian cooperation, – the head of Turkmenistan continued. – Over the years, a solid legal framework for cooperation has been developed, effective mechanisms for consultations and working contacts in various fields have been created, the basic principles on which the Central Asian countries and India build their interaction on the world stage have been determined.”

President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov noted that 2022 is also significant year for the 75th anniversary of India’s independence. During this short period by historical standards, the country has passed a glorious path equal to centuries, national statehood has been restored in its modern form, its own model of socio-economic development has been created, and a huge positive international experience has been accumulated.

As the leader of the nation highlighted, India is a close friend and an important partner for Turkmenistan. The Republic of India was among the first countries in the world to recognize the independence of our country.

As the head of Turkmenistan further noted, the First Central Asia – India Summit is taking place in difficult conditions. The threat of a pandemic and others have been added to the general international instability. It is all the more important today to unite the efforts of our states in ensuring peace, security and cooperation, establishing channels of constructive communication and dialogue as a guarantee of peace and development. In this regard, the leader of the nation expressed confidence that our countries will use the opportunities provided by the format of today’s meeting to achieve this goal.

Then the Summit continued with speeches by the leaders of the participating countries.

At the beginning of his speech, the President of Turkmenistan noted that the current meeting is intended to bring relations between the states of the Central Asian region and India to new frontiers. It is considered by our country as an important step towards the creation of a full-scale format of cooperation in conceptual terms. So, we can talk about the beginning of the process of systematization, ordering and giving a long-term character and stability to the entire complex of interstate relations, grounded historically and demanded by modern realities and needs.

In this context, the head of Turkmenistan expressed his conviction that today the parties have all the opportunities for this.

“We rely on fundamental values and the civilizational closeness of peoples. Central Asia and India have enormous human, industrial, natural, and technological potential. This resource is objectively aimed to strengthen our economic influence and political significance in the current and future world order, – President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov said. – The task of building truly strong, trusting and mutually beneficial schemes and models of cooperation between our countries, formulating common strategic goals, and launching large-scale joint projects becomes all the more important.”

It is obvious that the key condition for this is a lasting and long-term peace, security and stability. Today, in the conditions of the aggravation of the international situation, escalation of conflicts, dilution, and sometimes open disregard for the norms of international law, responsibility, balance, but at the same time firmness and determination to resist these dangerous trends, fight together against terrorism, radicalism and extremism, organized crime are especially important.

In continuation of the topic, the leader of the nation underlined that ensuring lasting and long-term security, maintaining peace and a balance of interests meet the strategic goals of our countries. Under these conditions, it seems natural to create mechanisms for integration and coordination, within the framework of which a regular and confidential exchange of views would take place on pressing issues, and ways to solve them in the common interests would be proposed. For this purpose, a good practice of holding meetings of foreign ministers has been established. Turkmenistan supports their continuation on a systematic and regular basis. 

In this regard, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov noted the expediency of creating the Secretariat of the Central Asia – India Summit and the constructiveness of the idea of the Central Asia – India Parliamentary Forum. Having also expressed support for the initiative of regular Dialogue at the level of security advisers, the head of Turkmenistan expressed the opinion that such a multifaceted format of cooperation can become an effective factor in expanding interstate political interaction.

“Turkmenistan directs its efforts to achieve this goal. Having taken the initiative, and in fact, with the new philosophy of international relations – “Dialogue is a Guarantee of Peace”, our country counts on the unification of all responsible and healthy forces in the global political arena. And of course, we firmly believe in the support of our position from the Central Asian states and India,” President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov said, voicing a proposal to establish systematic joint work in international organizations, primarily in the UN. 

Further, addressing his foreign colleagues, the head of Turkmenistan emphasized that cooperation between the countries of Central Asia and India is intended to ensure accelerated economic growth, create an efficient transport, energy, technological system that would guarantee our states competitive advantages and a modern level of integration into the main development processes.

The current level of trade and investment between India and the countries of the region is far from realizing its true potential, and together we have to correct this situation, the leader of the nation stated, noting that the Central Asia – India Business Council plays a special role here. The partnership experience accumulated within its framework should be used and intensified. Speaking about this, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov invited the Business Council to specify the areas of cooperation, focusing on viable and not distant joint projects.

In this regard, the head of Turkmenistan identified energy as an important area of joint efforts. The Central Asian states, which have rich natural resources, are now able to work seriously on creating an Energy Central Asia – India Bridge.

In particular, our country is currently implementing a large-scale energy project in cooperation with its partners – the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. Everyone knows its enormous geo-economic and geopolitical significance for the Eurasian continent as a whole. The Turkmen side is ready to discuss the possibilities of cooperation with Indian colleagues also in the electric power sector.

Referring to another key vector of partnership – transport, the leader of the nation noted that it is, first of all, about the creation of Eurasian transport corridors through Central Asia to sea terminals in the Indian Ocean. Turkmenistan, as a country whose territory provides, in fact, the only shortest route from this region to the Persian Gulf and from there to India, attaches priority importance to this direction.

Great importance is also attached to the Uzbekistan-Turkmenistan-Iran-Oman-Qatar transport corridor project. As you know, India has officially joined this project, which opens up additional opportunities for its participants.

In order to solve the issues of free movement of goods and services between India and Central Asia, our country supports the proposals of the Indian side to include the Chabahar Port in the structure of the International North-South Transport Corridor and to create an appropriate Joint Working Group. In this context, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov also proposed to consider the inclusion of the port of Turkmenbashi in this transit direction.

At the same time, it seems relevant to establish cooperation between specialized national institutions of the parties, including in the fields of finance, renewable energy sources, information, digital and other advanced technologies. Turkmenistan also highly appreciates cooperation in education, in particular, in the line of the Indian Program of Technical and Economic Cooperation and the Indian Council for Cultural Relations.

Our countries have accumulated a lot of experience in healthcare, based on which we can jointly solve the tasks facing the world community today, the leader of the nation noted. One of them is the fight against the pandemic of coronavirus infection. Over the past two years, Turkmenistan, within the framework of various international forums and organizations, has put forward a number of specific initiatives aimed at developing medical diplomacy, consolidating international efforts to counter the threat of the spread of coronavirus.

In this regard, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov voiced a proposal to consider the establishment of a Central Asia – India Medical Association, one of the main goals of which could be the fight against infectious diseases.

Highlighting that, in general, the expansion of cooperation in the cultural and humanitarian sphere is seen as an opportunity to strengthen good-neighborliness, rapprochement and mutual understanding of peoples, the head of Turkmenistan proposed to organize a series of joint cultural events in the cities of our region and India in this anniversary year.

“The establishment of diplomatic relations between the independent states of Central Asia and the Republic of India, the 30th anniversary of which is celebrated this year, marked the beginning of a new stage in the centuries-old history of our relations. The current anniversary, – the leader of the nation said, – provides a good opportunity for their comprehension, saturation with meaningful characteristics and impulses in the spirit of modern global development.”

At the end of his speech, expressing the conviction that today’s meeting will set the right guidelines for further interaction, rapprochement of positions and approaches, joint progress towards new horizons of cooperation, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov once again congratulated the leaders and peoples of the Central Asian and Indian states on a significant date, wishing everyone peace, prosperity and prosperity.

The speech of the head of Turkmenistan was listened to with deep interest.

During the Summit, the leaders of other Central Asian states also spoke, who highlighted the effectiveness of today’s meeting. This is evidenced by the important agreements reached, including the establishment of regular contacts at the level of foreign policy, economic and other departments, and the creation of joint specialized structures.

In his concluding remarks, Prime Minister Narendra Modi thanked the leaders of the countries of the region for their informative speeches, in which concrete proposals and initiatives were announced to activate mutually beneficial multifaceted partnership in the Central Asia – India format.

Thus, neutral Turkmenistan confirmed its commitment to the creative foreign policy strategy implemented under the leadership of President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, aimed at building fruitful cooperation in bilateral and multilateral formats, achieving Sustainable Development Goals in the regional and global dimensions, that meets the interests of universal well-being and progress.