Turkmenistan’s Foreign Ministry announced on November 1, 2016, the trip in an uninformative one-line statement, so there is no immediate insight into what the focus of the encounter will be. The Kremlin’s own statement on the meeting was not much more helpful.
Key issues of bilateral cooperation will be discussed during the talks at the highest level, the Kremlin press service said earlier.
It is assumed that the presidents will also discuss resumption of gas cooperation, which was interrupted in January 2016.
The previous visit of the President of Turkmenistan to Russia and negotiations with the leadership of the Russian Federation took place in December, 2011.
In May 10-11 2007, Putin visited Ashgabat, where the two held talks before visiting the city of Turkmenbashi to participate in the trilateral Russian-Turkmen-Kazakh summit.
The sides also signed a joint declaration on construction of the Caspian coastal gas pipeline, a project later shelved.
In 2015 Russian Gazprom reduced the import of Turkmen gas to a minimum of 4bn m3, and this year in general it has stopped its purchase.
Over the past 2 years Turkmenistan's economy, after hydrocarbon prices fell sharply, began to deteriorate. The government cancelled a number of social benefits, the local currency is devalued, in the black market the value of the dollar is 2.5 times higher than the rate announced by the National Bank. According to Radio Liberty, state employees only received their salaries for August in October.
In all likelihood, Berdymukhammedov's visit to Moscow is connected with energy.
According to the portal Turkmenistan Chronicle, for the first 9 months of 2016, China bought 23bn m³ of natural gas from Turkmenistan. Last year, the overall supply of Turkmen gas to China amounted to 28bn m³.
However, the Turkmen government does not receive the full funds for the gas supply as the money is used to repay billions of dollars of Chinese loans. Therefore, the export of gas to China still does not bring Turkmenistan tangible income, and the size of it is not reported.
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