Turkmenistan
Cluster Munition Ban Policy
Five-Year Review:Non-signatory Turkmenistan has never commented in its views on accession to the convention and has not participated in any of the convention’s meetings. It is not known to have used, produced, or exported cluster munitions, but inherited a stockpile of the weapons from the Soviet Union.
Policy
Turkmenistan has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.
It did not participate in the Oslo Process that created the convention and has never attended a meeting on cluster munitions or made a public statement on the issue.
Turkmenistan is party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is also party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.
Use, production, transfer, and stockpiling
Turkmenistan is not known to have used, produced, or exported cluster munitions.
It inherited a stockpile of cluster munitions from the Soviet Union but has not made a public declaration regarding its cluster munition stockpiles.[1] Turkmenistan is reported to possess Smerch 300mm, Uragan 220mm, and Grad 122mm unguided surface-to-surface rockets, but it is not known if these include versions with submunition payloads.[2] Turkmenistan ordered six additional Smerch rocket launchers in 2008 and is reported to have acquired them in 2009–2010.[3]
[1] As part of its Mine Ban Treaty obligations, Turkmenistan destroyed a stockpile of remotely delivered antipersonnel mines, specifically 5,452,416 PFM-type scatterable mines contained in 75,718 KSF-type cassettes, which are sometimes identified as cluster munitions. See ICBL, Landmine Monitor Report 2004: Toward a Mine-Free World (New York: Human Rights Watch, October 2004),p. 830–832. Turkmenistan may also have a sizeable stock of cluster munitions, as the main ammunition storage facility for Soviet combat operations in Afghanistan was located in Charjoh (now Turkmenabad), according to Turkmen military officers in April 2004.
[2] International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance 2011 (London: Routledge, 2011), p. 279; and Colin King, ed., Jane’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal, CD-edition, 10 January 2008 (Surrey, UK: Jane’s Information Group Limited, 2008).
[3] Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, “Arms Transfers Database.” Recipient report for Turkmenistan for the period 1950–2011, generated on 4 May 2012.