On April 17, Abdi Kuliev, a former Foreign Minister of Turkmenistan and currently one of that Central Asian country's leading opposition leaders, was arrested in Ashkhabad as he returned to his homeland. Kuliev was accompanied by his wife Tatyana and two Russian journalists--Arkady Dubnov of Radio Liberty and the weekly journal "Novoe Vremya," and Vitaliy Ponomariev, a free lance journalist and human rights monitor. All these three accompanying Kuliev were released after a brief period of detention. Kuliev's wife remains in Ashkhabad, but the journalists were immediately put on an airplane and sent back to Moscow. Reportedly, Kuliev was charged with trying to organize a coup and organizing an unauthorized protest rally in July 1995. According to reports from Turkmen democracy activists, he and his party were met by government officials as soon as they disembarked from their plane. Kuliev was released the next day but is now unable to leave Ashkhbad while the National Security Committee, Turkmenistan's successor to the KGB, investigates these charges.

Kuliev had publicly announced his plans to start constructive dialogues with President Niyazov's government despite the state's numerous violations of human rights and suppressions of peaceful opposition members. His attempts to fly to Ashkhabad on April 15 and 16 were not successful. On his first attempt, he was denied boarding onto the airplane "because there were no seats" for him, his wife Tatyana and Vitaliy Ponomariev, even though they all three had tickets. The next day, the airplane did not arrive from Ashkhabad to Moscow.

Relatives of Kuliev waited him for several hours at the arrivals hall of Ashkhabad airport. Later, around midnight they went to the Turkmen KGB headquarters to find out any information about the arrivals of Kuliev's party; they were told that there were no information available and were advised to come back the next morning. After that, it became impossible to reach Kuliev's relatives and friends, HR and pro-democratic activists by phone.

Kuliev holds a Russian passport, and according to his wife, he asked to meet representatives of the Russian Embassy.

Addendum, 3/22/98: Kuliev was sent back to Moscow today. According to RFE/RL, he was accompanied to the Ashkhabad airport by Russian embassy officials. He stated that he was told he should leave Turkmenistan "in order to avoid turmoil."

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