Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia bordered by Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to the north, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the south and southwest, and the Caspian Sea to the west, with a population of over 7 million, the lowest among the Central Asian republics, and Ashgabat as its capital and largest city. Turkmenistan has long served as a thoroughfare for regional empires and cultures; Merv, one of the oldest oasis cities in Central Asia and once among the largest cities in the world, was a great city of the Islamic world and an important Silk Road stop. The Russian Empire annexed the territory in 1881, and it figured prominently in the anti-Bolshevik movement in Central Asia before becoming the Turkmen Soviet Socialist Republic in 1925, gaining independence with the Soviet Union's 1991 dissolution. Turkmenistan is widely criticized for its poor human rights record and its lack of press and religious freedoms, having been ruled since independence by repressive totalitarian regimes, that of President for Life Saparmurat Niyazov until his 2006 death, then Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow from 2007, and since a disputed 2022 election his son Serdar, who now shares power with his father. Turkmenistan possesses the world's fifth-largest natural gas reserves, much of its territory covered by the Karakum Desert, and belongs to the United Nations as a founding member of TURKSOY and an observer state in the Organisation of Turkic States.