Azerbaijan currently has diplomatic relations with 160 countries: Afghanistan, Bahrain, Belarus, Belgium, Bulgaria, Canada, the People's Republic of China, Denmark, Egypt, France, Georgia, Germany, Hungary, Greece, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Kuwait, Libya, Luxembourg, Mexico, Moldova, Mongolia, Netherlands, Norway, Oman, Pakistan, Poland, Qatar, Republic of India, Romania, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, South Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Tajikistan, Togo, Turkey, Turkmenistan, Ukraine, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom, United States, Uzbekistan and Vietnam.

No seabed boundary with Turkmenistan in the Caspian Sea has been agreed upon and the usage of Caspian Sea water is a matter that remains unsettled by international agreement.

* Turkmenistan has an embassy in Astana.

As in the Soviet era, Kyrgyzstan has the right to 25 % of the water that originates in its territory, but the new agreement allows Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan unlimited use of the water that flows into them from Kyrgyzstan, with no compensation for the nation at the source.

Independence came in 1991, as Saparmurat Niyazov, a former local communist party boss, declared himself absolute ruler for life as Turkmenbashi or Leader of the Turkmen and transitioned the newly independent Turkmenistan into an authoritarian state under his absolute control and has thus far resisted the democratization that has influenced many of the other former Soviet Republics.

The territory of Turkmenistan has been populated since ancient times, especially the areas near oasis of Merv, where traces of human settlements have been found.

Turkmenistan has a cold desert climate that is severely continental.

Like other CIS republics, Turkmenistan has established an Environmental Fund based on revenues collected from environmental fines, but the fines generally are too low to accumulate significant revenue.

According to estimates, as a result of desertification processes and pollution, biological productivity of the ecological systems in Turkmenistan has declined by 30 % to 50 % in recent decades.

The type of desertification caused by year-round pasturing of cattle has been termed the most devastating in Central Asia, with the gravest situations in Turkmenistan and the Kazakh steppe along the eastern and northern coasts of the Caspian Sea.

Turkmenistan has announced plans to clean up some of the Aral Sea fallout with financial support from the World Bank.

His book, Ruhnama ( or Rukhnama ), which is revered in Turkmenistan almost like a holy text, has been translated into 32 languages and distributed for free among major international libraries.

In the post-Soviet era, Turkmenistan ’ s industrial sector has been dominated increasingly by the fuel and cotton processing industries to the detriment of light industry.

Turkmenistan has a state-controlled press and monitored communication systems.

The Tejen – Serakhs – Mashhad railroad, built in 1996 by Turkmenistan and Iran, has become a vital link of Central Asian, Russian, and European railroad systems with South Asia and the Persian Gulf.

Turkmenistan has one of the lowest gas prices in the world, at $ 0. 72 per gallon ($ 0. 19 per liter ).

Although the Government of Turkmenistan claims to favour trade with and export to the United States and Turkey, it has significant commercial relationships with Russia and Iran and a growing cross-border trade with Afghanistan.

Turkmenistan has no common land or Caspian Sea border with Russia.

Turkmenistan is a partner country of the EU INOGATE energy programme, which has four key topics: enhancing energy security,

Turkmenistan has the fourth largest gas reserves and has been actively on the lookout to build transportation routes to large markets and the route through Afghanistan has been the most feasible and economical.

Turkmenistan was until recently a single-party state wherein only the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan ( Türkmenistanyň Demokratik partiýasynyň ) was legally allowed to contest elections.

Turkmenistan is a single-party state ; the only political party, the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan, is the only party legally allowed to hold power.

* Turkmenistan-same gauge ( former Soviet Union railway system ) ( No direct link, passing through Uzbekistan, but proposed railway will pass throgh Turkmenistan and link Kazakhstan to Iran )

The system connects the main urban centers of western Tajikistan with points in neighboring Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.

Iran, with its standard gauge rail system, has break-of-gauge with gauge at the borders with Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan, and now also with Pakistan's Indian gauge at Zahedan.

Formally, according to the Constitution, citizens of Turkmenistan have the right to set up political parties and other public associations, acting within the framework of the Constitution and laws, and public associations and groups of citizens have the right to nominate their candidates in accordance with the election law.

On the other hand, according to the classification from International Monetary Fund ( IMF ) before April 2004, all the countries of Eastern Europe ( including Central European countries which still belongs to " Eastern Europe Group " in the UN institutions ) as well as the former Soviet Union ( USSR ) countries in Central Asia ( Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan ) and Mongolia, were not included under either developed or developing regions, but rather were referred to as " countries in transition "; however they are now widely regarded ( in the international reports ) as " developing countries ".

In first time territory of Khurasan ( including area Gorgan ) owned tribe aparnak ( parthians ), moved here from Dakhistan / Dahistan ( a part of territory of modern Turkmenistan ) where they entered in confederation of Dahai tribes ,-the " barbars " and " enemies of Aryans " according to Avestan texts as thinks Christian Bartholomae.

Since the collapse of the Taliban government in 2001, new trade relations are emerging with the United States, Pakistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, the EU, Japan, Uzbekistan, India and other countries.

In particular, he refused to pass on to the government the revenues gained from custom taxes on goods from Iran and Turkmenistan.

The politics of Turkmenistan takes place in the framework of a presidential republic, whereby the President of Turkmenistan is both head of state and head of government.

The bribes also took the form of luxury European vacations, armored Mercedes vehicles for high-ranking government officials and a birthday gift to the then notorious dictator of Turkmenistan, Turkmenbashi ( Saparmurat Niyazov ), including a golden box and 10, 000 copies of his personal manifesto, Ruhnama, translated into German.

Slavs, both in Moscow and Turkmenistan, closely supervised the national cadre of government officials and bureaucrats ; generally, the Turkmen leadership staunchly supported Soviet policies.

Turkmenistan, however, was known to have held official meetings and agreements with Taliban government ministers.

" The U. N. Special Rapporteur on Freedom of Religion or Belief, Asma Jahangir, appealed to the government of Turkmenistan in June 2003 and again in 2005 for an invitation to visit the country, but received no response.

Internet usage in Turkmenistan is under tight control by the government and websites run by human rights organizations and news agencies are blocked.

Since independence, the Islamic leadership in Turkmenistan has been more assertive, but in large part it still responds to government control.

Also pointing to high-level government corruption in the drug trade, Turkmenistan ’ s president, Saparmurat Niyazov, publicly declared that smoking opium was healthy.

Turkmenistan was a passing point for numerous migrations and invasions by tribes which gravitated towards the settled regions of the south including ancient Mesopotamia, Elam, and the Indus Valley Civilization.

It rises in north-western Afghanistan and runs north-west towards the Murghab District, which takes it name from the river, and then the Kara Kum desert in Turkmenistan, where it peters out.

It is bordered by Pakistan in the south and the east, Iran in the west, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan in the north, and China in the far northeast.

These include: Albania, Afghanistan Andorra, Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Benin, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chad, Chile, the People's Republic of China, Côte d ' Ivoire, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, DR Congo, Egypt, East Timor, Equatorial Guinea, Estonia, Ethiopia, Finland, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Grenada, Holy See ( Vatican City ), Honduras, Iceland, India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, North Korea, South Korea, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lebanon, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Libya, Malta, Mauritania, Mexico, Moldova, Monaco, Montenegro, Norway, Netherlands, Nigeria, Oman, Order of Malta, Paraguay, Poland, Portugal, Qatar, Romania, Russia, San Marino, Serbia, Seychelles, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sudan, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tajikistan, Thailand, Turkmenistan, Tuvalu, Ukraine, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, the United States of America, Uruguay, and Vietnam.

Afghan Turkestan is a region in northern Afghanistan, on the border with the former Soviet republics of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan.

Following evacuation in 1941 during the Great Patriotic War ( World War II ), he graduated in Aşgabat, in today's Turkmenistan.

From 1902 to 1904, in addition to the building of the Shrine of the Báb that ` Abdu ' l-Bahá was directing, he started to put into execution two different projects ; the restoration of the House of the Báb in Shiraz, Iran and the construction of the first Bahá ' í House of Worship in Ashgabat, Turkmenistan.

The Durrani Empire encompassed present-day Afghanistan, northeastern Iran, eastern Turkmenistan ( around the Panjdeh oasis ), the Kashmir region, the modern state of Pakistan and northwestern India.

In West Asia and the Eastern Mediterranean early copper zinc alloys are now known in small numbers from a number of third Millennium BC sites in the Aegean, Iraq, the United Arab Emirates, Kalmykia, Turkmenistan and Georgia and from 2nd Millennium BC sites in West India, Uzbekistan, Iran, Syria, Iraq and Israel.

Of the 193 member states of the United Nations, only 17 are not party to the treaty: Andorra, Angola, Democratic People's Republic of Korea ( North Korea ), Federated States of Micronesia, Haiti, Iraq, Kiribati, Lebanon, Maldives, Marshall Islands, Nauru, South Sudan, Tajikistan, Timor-Leste, Tonga, Turkmenistan and Tuvalu.

16. 6 million ), Kyrgyzstan ( 5. 5 million ), Tajikistan ( 7. 6 million ), Turkmenistan ( 5. 1 million ), and Uzbekistan ( 29. 5 million ), for a total population of 64. 7 million as of 2012.

The most limited definition was the official one of the Soviet Union, which defined Middle Asia as consisting solely of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

The Commonwealth of Independent States ( CIS ) is a loose alliance or confederation consisting of 10 of the 15 former Soviet Republics, the exceptions being Turkmenistan ( a CIS associate member ), Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Georgia.

* In Turkmenistan, the local party apparatus led by Saparmurat Niyazov was renamed the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan and abandoned communist ideology.

According to Parpola, ceramic similarities between the Indus Civilization, southern Turkmenistan, and northern Iran during 4300 – 3300 BC of the Chalcolithic period ( Copper Age ) suggest considerable mobility and trade.

* 2006 – Saparmurat Niyazov, President of Turkmenistan ( b. 1940 )

* 1940 – Saparmurat Niyazov, President of Turkmenistan ( d. 2006 )

Figures from the CIA World Factbook show the main export markets in 2006 were United Kingdom 30. 8 %, Spain 22. 7 %, Germany 13. 7 %, Turkmenistan 10. 4 %, Switzerland 8. 3 %, Italy 6. 7 % while the corresponding figures for imports are Spain 23. 4 %, Russia 12. 3 %, Italy 12 %, UK 9 %, France 8. 9 %, Netherlands 6. 8 % and United States 4. 7 %.