Turkmenistan to hold first-ever military exercises in Caspian
Turkmenistan says it is planning to hold its first-ever military maneuvers on the Caspian Sea.
Defense Minister Begench Gundogdyev was quoted in state-controlled media on Thursday as telling President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov that the Turkmen Navy is ready to hold the exercises at the beginning of September.
The announcement has come with Turkmenistan locked in a dispute with another Caspian state, Azerbaijan, over ownership of a section of the Caspian believed to hold lucrative energy reserves.
In June, the two sides accused each other of provocations and vowed to defend their rights over the section of an undersea oil field called Kapaz by Baku and Serdar by Ashgabat.
Experts are reported to have estimated that the region could be holding upward of 50 million tons of oil.