The last thing the former Soviet republic wants to see is the expansion of the Iran and Ukraine wars into the Caspian Sea.

As the only Central Asian state bordering Iran, Turkmenistan tends to approach Tehran pragmatically, prioritizing stability while pursuing deeper cooperation in energy, trade, transportation, infrastructure, water management, and commerce. Guided by these national interests, Ashgabat has sought to preserve a steady and problem-free relationship with Iran despite gas disputes that harmed bilateral ties in the 2000s and 2010s. For its part, Iran has largely respected Turkmenistan’s longstanding principle of permanent neutrality, allowing economic cooperation to anchor the bilateral relationship while keeping it well short of a formal security partnership.

Over the past six months, Turkmenistan has navigated the Iran War and its broader regional fallout with notable caution and discipline. In a regional environment where even measured political statements can carry significant geopolitical consequences, Ashgabat has sought to preserve its longstanding relationship with Tehran without allowing that engagement to come at the expense of its ties with the United States or Israel. By maintaining dialogue and mostly positive relations with Iran while avoiding rhetoric or actions that could be interpreted as taking sides, Turkmenistan has preserved its neutrality throughout the conflict. Its diplomatic conduct reflects a deliberate effort to maintain functional relations with Washington and Tehran alike while avoiding actions that could be construed as alignment with either.

National Leader of the Turkmen people and Chairman of the People’s Council (Halk Maslahaty) of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov’s decision to congratulate Mojtaba Khamenei after his elevation to the position of the Islamic Republic’s third supreme leader underscored this approach and signaled Turkmenistan’s continued willingness to engage the Iranian leadership despite the intensification of hostilities. 

At the same time, Turkmenistan has provided humanitarian assistance to Iran, apparently without fueling friction with the Trump administration. Taken together, these measures suggest that Ashgabat has operationalized neutrality as a form of diplomatic risk management that entails maintaining channels with opposing actors, protecting established bilateral interests, and minimizing the likelihood that relations with one party will undermine those with another. 

This balancing act is critical to Turkmenistan, especially given its geographic proximity to Iran, its economic and cultural ties with the country, and Ashgabat’s deeply entrenched doctrine of permanent neutrality. Rather than allowing the conflict to force a strategic choice between competing partners, Turkmenistan has focused on maintaining communication, protecting its economic interests, and insulating its foreign relations from widening regional tensions. 

As Bruce Pannier, a fellow at the Turan Research Center and board member of the Caspian Policy Center, explained in an interview with this author, “[Officials in Turkmenistan] don’t take sides and they have kept the doors open in their relationship with Iran…I would say [the Ashgabat-Tehran relationship] hasn’t been damaged by what has happened in the last six months.”

Within this context, Turkmenistan, like its fellow Central Asian republics, pursues a genuinely “multi-vector” foreign policy aimed at expanding international cooperation and deepening economic integration, particularly through the development of North-South and East-West transport and transit corridors. 

For the region’s landlocked and, in some cases, doubly landlocked states, maintaining constructive relations with Iran is therefore strategically important. Iran offers Central Asian countries the shortest overland route to the Persian Gulf and, by extension, to global markets. This advantage remains significant despite the logistical and financial complications arising from Western sanctions on Tehran.

Turkmenistan’s Exposure to the Iran War

Highly aware that instability in either Iran or Afghanistan could spill into Turkmenistan, policymakers in Ashgabat are particularly concerned about state collapse, prolonged internal conflict(s), or the emergence of ungoverned spaces in neighboring countries that could create new security threats for Turkmenistan and the wider region. The country also has a vested interest in preserving stability in the Caspian Sea, where broader regional conflict could disrupt the security environment surrounding its territory, energy infrastructure, and economic interests.

For Ashgabat, a prolonged or uncontrolled crisis in Iran could produce consequences that reverberate through Afghanistan and ultimately across Central Asia, including political fragmentation, cross-border insecurity, and broader regional destabilization. These risks give Turkmenistan an additional incentive to stay out of the conflict and avoid actions that could make it a party to a confrontation it has no interest in joining. Thus far, Ashgabat appears to have maintained a delicate equilibrium, sustaining a functional and constructive relationship with Iran while avoiding a deterioration in its relations with Tehran’s adversaries.

Turkmenistan’s economic reliance on Iran and the disruption that the conflict has caused to established trade networks have somewhat complicated matters for Ashgabat. As the conflict intensifies, these pressures have increasingly pushed Turkmenistan toward alternative suppliers.

“Turkmenistan is dependent on Iran for basic food supplies, construction materials, and industrial technologies, utilizing both cash and a barter system through which Iran received natural gas in exchange for its goods. As such items have become scarcer and more expensive in Iran, prices for commodities reaching Turkmenistan have skyrocketed as well. Trade from the Gulf’s Arab nations and from shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has collapsed due to Iran’s attempt to throttle maritime shipping and the US blockade on vessels heading to Iranian ports,” Dr. Jamsheed K. Choksy, a professor of Central Eurasian Studies at Indiana University Bloomington, told this author.

“Consequently, commodities, prices, and revenues are in flux, both for Turkmenistan and far more broadly and adversely for Iran. Hence, Turkmenistan now has to rely directly and indirectly more on China and Russia for trade items, and therefore Beijing’s and Moscow’s influence and leverage upon Ashgabat grows,” he added.

Turkmenistan’s Interests in the Caspian Sea

On July 27, Turkmenistan’s Foreign Ministry condemned Ukraine’s attack on an Iranian commercial vessel in the Caspian Sea, which Kyiv carried out two days earlier. Ashgabat declared such actions “unacceptable” and reaffirmed its commitment to regional stability and emphasized that the Caspian Sea should remain “a sea of peace, harmony, and good-neighborliness.” The statement underscored Ashgabat’s diplomatic principles and its position that military actions threatening the Caspian’s security and stability are incompatible with the region’s peaceful character.

“Maintaining stability is absolutely vital for all Caspian littoral states, but especially so for Iran and Turkmenistan. This is particularly true for states like Turkmenistan, now that the Trans-Caspian route is becoming increasingly vital as the southern route is closed off due to the conflict and impending sanctions on Iran,” Dr. Edward Wastnidge, Head of Politics and International Studies at the Open University, told this author.

“Turkmenistan stands to be a key beneficiary of the Trans-Capsian route and requires a stable sea to realise this potential. Keeping foreign militaries out of the Caspian Sea has also been a long-standing Iranian aim in negotiations over the Sea’s legal status. The Caspian acts as a vital artery for Iran, especially in light of the current US blockade, and is crucial in the arms trade between Iran and Russia, as the Ukrainian strikes demonstrated,” he added.

Turkmenistan’s longstanding efforts to develop its Caspian offshore oil with foreign partners such as Malaysia’s Petronas are increasingly threatened by instability in the Caspian Sea, making the sector less attractive to investors and complicating Ashgabat’s efforts to secure new partners. The risks are particularly significant as Turkmenistan seeks to advance the long-discussed Trans-Caspian gas pipeline, which would carry its gas to Azerbaijan and onward to Turkey and the European Union, potentially doubling exports to high-value markets. Continued insecurity in the Caspian therefore undermines foreign investment and threatens one of Turkmenistan’s most important avenues for expanding and diversifying its energy exports.

“They’re holding tenders to see if they can get foreign partners to help them develop these other Capsian blocks,” Pannier told this author. “Now with the problems in the Caspian Sea because of the Ukraine-Russia conflict, and now the US-Iran conflict, it’s not a very attractive proposition” with elevated risks of explosions threatening pipeline infrastructure and the safety of workers, all serving to undermine Turkmenistan’s core economic interests.

As much as Turkmenistan’s interests in the Trans-Caspian Middle Corridor require preventing the US-Iran confrontation from expanding into the Caspian Sea while keeping the body of water a neutral zone, Dr. Choksy noted that “as the US ramps up economic and monetary blockades upon Tehran, the likelihood of enforcement against shipping to and from Iran’s Caspian ports and to and from any Caspian ports overland into and out of Iranian territory will rise drastically.” 

Therefore, as he told this author, Turkmenistan is set to come under pressure to help monitor and enforce trade embargoes amid threats of intervention from the warring parties seeking either to obstruct or enable commercial activity.

“The challenge ahead for Ashgabat will be to maintain economic and cultural ties with Iran while accommodating any increase of demands by Washington to cut back on those ties and to join the US in throttling Tehran,” said Dr. Choksy.

About the Author: Giorgio Cafiero

Giorgio Cafiero is the CEO of Gulf State Analytics, an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University, and an adjunct fellow at the American Security Project. He is a frequent contributor to Al Jazeera, Gulf International Forum, The New Arab, Responsible Statecraft, Stimson Center, and Amwaj.Media. Throughout his career, Mr. Cafiero has consulted with many public and private-sector entities, briefed diplomats from various countries on Gulf affairs, and worked as a subject-matter expert for multinational law firms. Mr. Cafiero holds an MA in International Relations from the University of San Diego. Find him on X: @GiorgioCafiero.

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