It is the third time this Uzbekistan-initiated format is convening – the first occasion was in Nur-Sultan in March 2018, the second in Tashkent in November 2019. That issue is likely to occupy a prominent position on the agenda at a consultative summit of Central Asian heads of state being held August 5-6 in the Turkmen resort town of Awaza. This display of martial preparedness is presumably related to ongoing unrest in neighboring Afghanistan. Specialist publications note, however, that Ashgabat is being circumspect about how many of the planes it bought. Turkmenistan’s air force in June took receipt of a number of Leonardo C-27J Spartan tactical transports manufactured by Italy’s Leonardo S.p.A. What this episode has more usefully documented is how Turkmenistan is increasingly devoted to military aviation acquisitions from Italy. Cadets are already being shown the costume to fill them with inspiration. The president’s pilot costume was immediately donated to the museum attached to the Berdymukhamed Annayev Military School, which is named after the leader’s late grandfather, at Defense Minister Begench Gundogdyev’s request. Such pedantry will detract little from how this outing will be used to add further fuel to the deification of Berdymukhamedov. The jet can fly at maximum velocities of around 1,000 kilometers per hour, more than 200 kilometers per hour short of the speed of sound. The aircraft in question has been identified as an Italian-made Aermacchi M-346 Master, which is in turn modeled on a Russian-designed Yak-130. Of the aircraft that he flew, the paper stated only that it was “a fighting machine equipped with modern turbojet engines that can be used, among other things, for training military pilots.” But when Neutral Turkmenistan noted that Berdymukhamedov had flown, as a passenger, in a “supersonic plane,” this put up the backs of military buffs. In its August 2 report on the president’s tour of facilities at a Balkan province base, Neutral Turkmenistan did not specify what planes he was inspecting. The stunt has been cast by the state propaganda machine as a hands-on exercise in weapons-testing by Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov. And it finally happened – or state media said it did, at any rate – over the weekend. It was only a matter of time before Turkmenistan’s president took a spin in a fighter jet. He has raced cars on the edge of fiery craters, gunned down targets while riding a bicycle, and even gathered wheat in a combine harvester. Wingman Berdymukhamedov preparing for flight.
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