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Yahoo! My Yahoo! Mail More Yahoo! Services Account Options New User? Sign Up Sign In Help Yahoo! Search web search Home Singapore Asia Pacific World Business Entertainment Sports Technology Australia China India Indonesia Japan Malaysia Philippines Thailand Vietnam UN chief tours troubled ex-Soviet Central Asia By JIM HEINTZ,Associated Press Writer - Saturday, April 3 Send IM Story Print ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan – U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon on Friday pushed Turkmenistan to improve its human rights record, opening a trip through ex-Soviet Central Asia where complaints of violations are extensive. "I called on the government to fulfill all obligations under international human rights law and the many treaties to which it is a signatory," Ban said after meeting Turkmen President Gurbanguli Berdymukhamedov. The Turkmen leader, sitting next to Ban, did not mention human rights in his post-meeting statement or in an earlier session with Ban and the Cabinet. Instead, he emphasized Turkmenistan's commitment to neutrality, its interest in improving water supplies in the largely arid nation and its concern about promoting stability and development in neighboring Afghanistan. "Our position on the situation in Afghanistan is that all questions there must be solved only by peaceful means," he said. Berdymukhamedov proposed building a rail line to the Afghan border and a pipeline to Afghanistan for Turkmenistan's abundant natural gas, the backbone of its economy. At some length, he also praised Turkmenistan's improving public health, noting that the country now iodizes all its salt and claiming that Turkmenistan has not registered any cases of HIV infection. The dichotomy between Ban and Berdymukhamedov on human rights underlined the delicacy of the issue facing the U.N. leader on the trip. Human rights advocates have called on Ban to use the six-day blitz visit to five countries to pressure the leaders. But the autocratic presidents of these countries resent outside criticism on the issue. Ban appeared to be trying to walk a firm but delicate line in Turkmenistan by employing both criticism and praise. He repeatedly congratulated Berdymukhamedov for reforms in the country during his three years in power, at one point nudging him by saying: "As you are still in the transition to full democracy." Berdymukhamdov rules with unchallenged power in a state that has only a single political party and no visible independent activists. But he has allowed limited Internet access to private citizens, raised the prospects of allowing a second political party and removed many of the once-omnipresent images of his predecessor, Saparmurat Niyazov, who established a suffocating cult of personality. It remains to be seen how far he is willing to go in reforms, or even how much he can do. Niyazov called himself Turkmenbashi, "Father of All Tukmen," and still casts a long shadow in the country. Directly after meeting Berdymukhamedov, Ban and his delegation made a solemn visit to Niyazov's marble-and-gold mausoleum to lay a wreath. Kyrgyzstan, the next stop, on Saturday, once appeared to be the opposite of Turkmenistan, and was hailed as the region's "island of democracy." But since Kurmanbek Bakiyev took office in 2005 following protests that drove out the previous president, pressure on human rights activists and independent media has increased. Last month, Bakiyev questioned whether Western-style democracy was appropriate for the country. Kyrgyzstan is small and has few natural resources, but its stability is of concern to both East and West. Russia and the United States both have air bases in the country; the U.S. base is a key part of the military campaign in Afghanistan. Frustrations over poverty and rights have contributed to growing support for the Hizb ut-Tahrir movement, which advocates an Islamic caliphate in Kyrgyzstan and in Uzbekistan, Ban's next stop. Ban's meeting with Uzbek leader Islam Karimov is likely to be the most tense of the trip, coming less than two weeks after the U.N. Human Rights Committee sharply criticized the country. In particular, the committee called for a more thorough investigation of the brutal suppression of a 2005 uprising in the city of Andijan. Opposition and rights groups claim that hundreds were killed, but authorities insist the reports are exaggerated and angrily reject any criticism. Ban then continues to Tajikistan, still struggling to overcome the devastation of a five-year civil war against Islamists in the 1990s and to fight the surge of Afghan opium that penetrates its porous border en route to European addicts. The trip concludes in Kazakhstan, where media and activist groups operate with relative freedom. But President Nursultan Nazarbayev's party holds all the seats in the elected lower house of parliament, and critics doubt the country's commitment to reform. 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