Affaires a.i. Sylvia Reed Curran for reasons 1. 4 (B) and (D). 1. (C) SUMMARY: According to expatriate sources in Ashgabat, a yacht that recently set sail on the Caspian Sea -- reportedly worth 60 million euros -- is actually a gift from Russian company Itera. Itera is working on signing a deal jointly with Russian state-owned companies Rosneft and Zarubezhneft and Turkmenistan's Turkmenneft to develop...
gift' of £50m vessel according to leaked US embassy cables President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov is "vain, suspicious, guarded, strict, very conservative", a "micro-manager" and "a practised liar", US diplomats say, in a stunningly unflattering portrait of Turkmenistan's head of state In the diplomatic equivalent of a mauling, the US embassy gives a brutal assessment of the president's talents, and...
s Islamic revolution only nine days before radical supporters of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini stormed their embassy and took them hostage. A confidential cable sent to Washington by the embassy on 26 October, 1979, and signed by the charge d'affaires, Bruce Laingen, notes that "within the past few weeks, moderate groups who favour a more balanced society resembling a western social-democracy have become...