Turkmenistan Hits Out at U.S. Rights Criticism By REUTERS
Filed at 9:58 a.m. ET
ASHGABAT (Reuters) - Turkmenistan, which has accused Russia and Uzbekistan of playing a role in a recent attempt on its president's life, took on the United States Wednesday, accusing it of biased criticism of human rights abuses.
State Department spokesman Philip Reeker said in a New Year's eve statement that Washington was ``deeply concerned by the conduct of authorities in Turkmenistan'' and had ``credible reports of torture and abuse of suspects.''
The comments came after President-for-Life Saparmurat Niyazov -- official title Turkmenbashithe Great -- escaped unhurt in a botched assassination bid when his motorcade was strafed by machinegun fire on November 25.
The State Department said Turkmen authorities had carried out summary trials and arrested opposition members and civil society activists apparently unconnected to the attack.
Following the attack, Turkmenistan accused senior Russian officials of protecting those who had inspired the plot, and the Uzbek ambassador of hiding former Turkmen foreign minister Boris Shikhmuradov, later sentenced to life imprisonment as the plot's ringleader.
In an unprecedented move likely to have been sanctioned by Niyazov, all Turkmen state-run newspapers -- all of them founded by Niyazov himself -- published a harsh open letter supposedly penned by their editors to Reeker, advising him not to defend ``a biased policy toward Turkmenistan.''
``Philip T. Reeker, we advise you not to make painstaking but futile efforts and not to bust your gut in the hope that your calumnious allegations...will be able to split the Turkmen nation,'' the letter said.
Niyazov basks in a flourishing personality cult in his gas-rich Central Asian state of five million. All the newspapers he founded carry an oath of loyalty to him on their front pages. There are no opposition parties and no independent mass media.
There has been no other official reaction to U.S. criticism.
The letter also complained that U.S. ambassador to Turkmenistan Laura Kennedy had spoken by phone three times to Shikhmuradov after the assassination bid.
The editors castigated Kennedy for ``not hesitating to express her sympathy to the Uzbek ambassador,'' later expelled for allegedly sheltering Shikhmuradov.
``Shouldn't these actions by the U.S. ambassador to Ashgabat be viewed as unfriendly toward Turkmenistan?'' the letter said.
The editors offered no explanation of how they knew the substance of Kennedy's telephone calls.