Turkmenistan 'setting up space agency'

May 31, 2011

ASHGABAT — The isolated ex-Soviet state of Turkmenistan has set up its own space agency with a presidential decree, local media said on Tuesday.

The agency aims "to ensure the implementation of scientific achievements in the national economy and to supervise future space exploration," said a decree signed by President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov.

The decree published in the state-run newspaper Neitralny Turkmenistan, or Neutral Turkmenistan, did not specify who would head the new agency in the gas- and oil-rich Central Asian state.

Turkmenistan, a largely desert state with a population of five million, has reportedly been in talks with potential partners to launch its first telecommunications satellite to boost its television and Internet network.

Under the eccentric late president Saparmurat Niyazov, Turkmenistan sent a container into space in 2004 from Russia's Baikonur cosmodrome. Inside was a national flag and the Ruhnama, a book written by the leader.

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