The decision of canceling dual citizenship was taken between Vladimir Putin and Saparmurad Niyazov in their bilateral meeting in Moscow on April 10-12, 2003. Upon this agreement, Turkmenistan has been making new changes to take absolute hold of citizens who possessed the status of double citizenship. Within this context, tickets are not being sold at the airport for dual citizens without the official permission of Turkmen authorities. \"Now it became almost impossible for me to visit my Russian relatives in Moscow,\" claims an elderly woman from Dashoguz region. In this case, two flights of Ashgabat-Moscow-Ashgabat out of seven routes per week have already been cancelled. Turkmen airlines explain the case with the lack of passengers flying to Russia. In addition, a weekly flight Ashgabat-Tashkent has also been closed down. But one may question the cancellation of flights, as it takes over two or sometimes even more than three months to get an exit visa from state authorities. Ethnic Russians who are about 100,000 all throughout Turkmenistan face a difficult choice after all. According to Turkmenbashi\'s decree, they have almost a month left to choose their citizenship, otherwise they automatically lose their Russian citizenship and become Turkmen.

State borders with neighboring countries such as Uzbekistan are being strictly controlled to avoid the emigration of dual citizens to other countries. Those who want to escape from Turkmenistan through Uzbek borders are being caught and stopped by border guards unless they have an exit visa. But receiving this visa costs about $100, which is accompanied by a time-consuming bureaucratic process. Within this context, Russia appears to be less worried about the human rights of ethnic Russians in Turkmenistan. Those Russians being in a volatile position consider themselves as being objects of a tradeoff for natural gas. Meanwhile, a Russian court declared an arrest warrant for Hudayberdi Orazov, a former Head of the Central Bank of Turkmenistan who has been in exile in opposition against Niyazov\'s regime. At the same time, Murad Esenov on behalf of Democratic Movement of Turkmenistan addressed Boris Nemtsov, leader of Russia\'s liberal Union of Rightist Forces (SPS) party, to influence Turkmenistan\'s decision of terminating dual citizenship and protecting ethnic Russians\' human rights and prisoners of conscience in Turkmenistan. By doing so, the Turkmen opposition in Moscow and Sweden try to gain support in the Russian Duma.

In addition to the uneasy situation of Russians within the country, the opposition abroad is consolidating, following the track of Turkmenbashi\'s idiosyncratic new policies. In this context, leaving Turkmenistan due to the political regime seems to become common for Turkmen state officials. It is worth recalling that the Turkmen ambassador to Great Britain has recently asked for political asylum in Great Britain.

As the official website of Democratic Movement of Turkmenistan states, the released U.S. citizen L. Komarovsky after his release to the U.S. \"declared war\" on Niyazov through writing a book about the real life of the Turkmen nation and the political regime within the country. While answering the questions of journalists, Komarovsky asserts that he had been under various types of torture while being in custody in Turkmenistan. Meanwhile, the U.S. and E.U. are raising concern about the \"inhumane treatment of prisoners in Turkmenistan, particularly the news last month of two death cases, of Murat Shikhmuradov, the nephew of ex-Foreign Minister Boris Shikhmuradov, and former Deputy National Security Minister Hayyt Kakayev, who were recently reported dead in custody.\"

All in all, the termination of dual citizenship has developed both internal and external repercussions in Turkmenistan. Ethnic Russians are having a difficult time ever in Turkmenistan. As the international community pays a special attention to Turkmenistan, the opposition gains strength abroad.