The leaders of Kyrgyzstan and Turkmenistan agreed on new financial and energy deals, as the two met for talks in the Turkmen capital.
The June 28 meeting was the first stop of Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov’s travels to his country’s Central Asian neighbors.
According to the Kyrgyz presidential administration, Japarov and his Turkmen counterpart, Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, agreed to set up a $100 million Kyrgyz-Turkmen Fund to support joint business projects.
There was no immediate public statement from the Turkmen government.
The two also agreed that Turkmenistan would supply Kyrgyzstan with electricity and natural gas during winter months.
With some of the world’s largest proven reserves, Turkmenistan is a major exporter of natural gas, sending supplies as far away as China.
Kyrgyzstan, meanwhile, is heavily dependent on electricity generated from mountain hydroelectric dams, some of which are endangered by climate change.
The Kyrgyz delegation also said it signed more than a dozen other agreements between the two countries’ government ministries, state agencies, and universities.
Later on June 28, Japarov was scheduled to travel to another Central Asian nation, Tajikistan, where he is expected to discuss with his counterpart, Emomali Rahmon, the complicated situation along disputed sectors of the Kyrgyz-Tajik border.
In late April, clashes along one segment of the border killed dozens of people on both sides, raising fears of a wider conflict between the two impoverished former Soviet republics.
Like Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan is also closely watching the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan, where U.S. forces are withdrawing and Taliban fighters have seized a growing number of settlements