The Prosecutor General, Gurbanbibi Atajanova speaking on state TV on the president’s decree stated that people from three main categories are set to receive Turkmen citizenship and permanent residency. First, prima facie refugees who fled Tajikistan during the Tajik Civil War of the 1990s and had been living in Turkmenistan up until now qualify for receiving citizenship. As Mr. Niyazov said, the total number of refugees in this category consists of about 13,245 people. The Turkmen of Afghanistan who returned back to Turkmenistan so far also fall into the same category. Second, people who were sent for various reasons, including education or job seeking purposes, to other former USSR countries and thereby lost their Turkmen citizenship, also qualify for receiving citizenship. Third, longtime residents of Turkmenistan who had been living on the northern borders, particularly on the lands that Uzbekistan had been renting and recently returned to Turkmenistan, may seek citizenship and permanent residency as well.

This move occurred after longtime negotiations between the governments of Tajikistan and Turkmenistan. Recently, Tajikistan’s embassy in Turkmenistan was reported to have contacted the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Tajikistan in order to simplify the procedures for its former citizens living in Turkmenistan to get Turkmen citizenship. The embassy’s official letter says, “the draft agreement concerns the interests of over 15,000 of our former compatriots, ethnic Turkmens, who left the country for Turkmenistan for permanent residence during the [1992-97] civil war and intend to stay there forever. In line with our country’s current legislation, all of them have virtually lost their citizenship of the Republic of Tajikistan.”

The majority of refugees in Turkmenistan are believed to be ethnic Turkmens who have been waiting for this opportunity for a long time now. There are also representatives of other ethnicities among the refugees and as the common voice comes out of the festival, everybody is happy to rejoice the unexpected event. “This is the happiest day of my life. My daughter is going to school for the first time and now she can use all the rights given to a Turkmen citizen” says Gulayim who works in a carpet factory in Akhal region. Hussein, a tenant in a farm says, “we’re six in the family and came here from Tajikistan in 1995. Working in the fields and growing wheat, cotton, I managed to build a house and a beautiful garden. Now I get the citizenship. Couldn’t be better!”

Facilitating the return of ethnic Turkmens back to Turkmenistan has been one of the main directions of the policy of National Revival. In this connection, Mr. Niyazov widely announced an “Open Doors” policy in the early 1993s and the Association of All the Turkmen in the World was created in the capital, Ashgabat.

Anita Linden, head of the UNHCR mission in Turkmenistan, praised the President on this particular move. Along with the UN permanent representative in Turkmenistan, Ms. Linden sent an official letter to President Niyazov where she noted that “by signing this decree on granting citizenship, Turkmenistan once again demonstrated its humanitarian responsibilities toward the refugees. We waited long for this to come.”