DAULETABAD GAS FIELD, Turkmenistan – Far out in a remote corner of this Central Asian desert, not a half-hour's drive from where the ancient Silk Road once crossed the tawny sand hills, a tangle of pipes rises out of nowhere.

The 100-acre complex is the collection facility for one of the world's largest gas fields – "a jewel given to us by God," as one Turkmen gas official described it. But for more than a year Dauletabad has been as silent as the half-buried cities that lie along the abandoned caravan route between China and the Mediterranean.

In August 1997, in a bold move that conjured up memories of 19th-century Turkmen khans staving off would-be Russian conquerors, President Saparmurad Niyazov halted gas deliveries to the Russian-controlled pipeline system that was built during the Soviet era. Niyazov said he "smelled old Soviet ambitions" in Russia's use of its pipeline monopoly to keep Turkmenistan's gas from competing with Russian gas in European markets. Soon, he hinted, Turkmen gas could be shipped south through Iran.

For Niyazov, a product of the Soviet system, the closing of the valves was a dramatic declaration that business as usual was over. The sudden availability of 2.8 trillion cubic feet per year of gas previously committed to the Russian pipeline system propelled Niyazov from an obscure Central Asian strongman to a central figure in an intricate geopolitical drama that has drawn in Washington, Tehran, Moscow and assorted regional capitals.

While the prize in the Caspian is an energy patch whose size is believed by many to exceed those in Alaska and the North Sea, the overarching issue is how to get the commodity out of landlocked Central Asia. The politics of pipelines seems as tangled as the routes themselves, and each route carried its own treacherous obstacles. But a simple ambition had come to unify American policy in the region: Tap the Caspian mother lodes while giving as little leverage as possible to Russia in the north and Iran in the south.

Across the Caspian, Azerbaijan had already enlisted U.S. oil companies and pulled the Clinton administration into a crusade to build pipelines that would skirt Russia on the way to the Black Sea and the Mediterranean. In Kazakhstan, the Clinton administration was about to risk provoking Moscow again by promoting pipelines that would carry Kazakh oil to western markets without Russian interference.

Now Turkmenistan had entered the game. By defying the Russians and hinting at a partnership with Iran, Niyazov was suddenly someone to be reckoned with. From Washington's perspective, the stakes were high enough to put this remote nation of 4 million people on the U.S. policy agenda. Niyazov was a player, and he had anted up one of the biggest gas reserves on Earth.

Choice Fields Sold Off

In the first years after winning independence in 1991, Turkmenistan seemed as obscure and unobtrusive as ever. Naive Turkmen officials auctioned off choice oil and gas fields for as little as $100,000 to foreign opportunity seekers. Among those who picked up cut-rate concessions were a Dubai car salesman, a Swedish real estate magnate and Roger E. Tamraz, the Lebanese American entrepreneur who subsequently became entangled in a U.S. Senate investigation of his donations to the Democratic National Committee.

Turkmenistan's potential was enormous. Just inland from the Caspian shore were some of the world's oldest oil fields, and Soviet-era geological surveys indicated that the prospect for offshore finds was good. In the trackless Garagum Desert, away from a thin line of irrigated valleys, geologists had discovered one gas field after another beginning in the 1960s. By 1990, Dauletabad and the adjoining Sovietabad field were producing 1.6 trillion cubic feet a year, rivaling the gigantic gas fields of Siberia.

Almost all of this gas was pumped north across Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan into a Russian pipeline and on to markets in Europe and the former Soviet republics.

Alexander M. Haig Jr., a businessman who had served as NATO commander and secretary of state, was one of the first Westerners to propose that Niyazov end his dependence on Russian pipelines. Haig arrived in Turkmenistan in 1992 representing a U.S. investment company. The retired general stood apart from other foreign businessmen courting Niyazov's favors. As a denizen of boardrooms and executive suites, he seemed an unlikely comrade for Niyazov, a former Communist party boss partial to boisterous evenings of vodka-drinking. But Niyazov believed that in Haig he had access to the U.S. power structure, according to sources who observed the relationship.

Haig became an unofficial Niyazov adviser and confidant, screening foreign companies and helping arrange a Niyazov visit to Washington in 1993. But the autocratic Turkmen leader was still being shunned by the new Clinton administration, and the closest Niyazov got to the White House was his room at the Madison Hotel five blocks away.

That same year Haig formed a consortium with the idea of building a small pipeline to carry modest amounts of Turkmen gas across Iran to Turkey. But the project did not involve U.S. companies; Haig's pipeline enterprise was registered in the British Virgin Islands.

Haig's consortium won endorsements from the energy ministers of Kazakhstan, Iran and Turkey, and the sultan of oil-rich Brunei was ready to invest, according to Charles D. Hartman, a Haig associate. But in Washington, economic initiatives involving Iran were still poison. The Clinton administration, like its predecessors, favored relentless international isolation of the Tehran regime for allegedly supporting terrorism.

In March 1995, the White House stepped in to block a $1 billion oil deal between Conoco Inc. and Iran. Soon afterward, National Security Council officials let Haig know that the government opposed his project, too, and the idea died.

To State Department strategists, the perfect pipeline out of Dauletabad lay in a different direction: from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to Pakistan, connecting the gas resources of Central Asia to the surging economies of South Asia. Such a line would deprive Iran of transit fees for Turkmen gas crossing its territory while capturing the South Asian gas market coveted by Iran.

The initial enthusiast for the Afghan route was not an American, however, but Carlos Bulgheroni, the short, workaholic chairman of the Bridas Group, an Argentine company. In 1993, a Bridas joint venture with Turkmenistan had begun laying more than 2,000 miles of seismic lines to map the geology of a potential gas field in eastern Turkmenistan. Two test wells confirmed a huge gas deposit 150 miles from the Afghan border.

In the spring of 1995, Turkmenistan and Pakistan commissioned Bulgheroni's company to study the Afghan route. But that summer, a rival entered the game. John Imle, president of California-based Unocal Corp., wooed Niyazov and Benazir Bhutto, then prime minister of Pakistan, throughout July with a vision of a Unocal pipeline following roughly the same route as the one proposed by Bridas.

A Unocal link had strong appeal for Niyazov. Afghanistan was in turmoil. A big American oil company could draw on the political muscle of the United States to promote Turkmenistan's energy interests.

In October 1995, both Bulgheroni and Imle followed Niyazov to New York for the opening of the U.N. General Assembly. Each expected to be chosen to build the Afghan pipeline, according to sources close to the two men. On Oct. 21, the nod went to the Americans as Niyazov announced the selection of Unocal. Looking on at the announcement ceremony was former secretary of state Henry A. Kissinger, now a Unocal consultant. Given the uncertain political situation in Afghanistan, Kissinger said, the deal looked like "the triumph of hope over experience."

Arrests Cloud Relationship

The Clinton administration's relationship with Niyazov had begun sourly when the Turkmen leader jailed a group of opposition leaders just before the arrival in September 1993 of Assistant Secretary of State Strobe Talbott. A miffed Talbott canceled most of his meetings and left without even spending the night.

But by 1996, Niyazov looked less offensive. His embrace of Unocal and his interest in a South Asian pipeline had piqued U.S. interest. That is clear from memos written in 1996 by Tsalik Nayberg, a Unocal representative in Ashgabat, the Turkmen capital. Some of Nayberg's reports to his superiors are part of the record in a civil lawsuit that Bridas filed against Unocal in Texas two years ago, charging Unocal with interfering with its business in Turkmenistan.

Nayberg reported to Unocal on Sept. 17, 1996, that U.S. Ambassador "Michael Cotter feels President Niyazov is unhappy with us and is not entirely educated on major steps required to implement a project of such magnitude."

Unocal was, in fact, in a difficult spot. Bridas had signed an exclusive contract in Afghanistan for pipeline transit rights, thwarting the American company. The defeat of the Kabul government by Taliban fundamentalist guerrillas in late 1996 brought Unocal new hope of cutting a deal in Afghanistan, but it proved short-lived.

The Taliban quickly alienated U.S. public opinion by forcing women out of schools and workplaces and imposing a stringent new code of dress and behavior. While maintaining contacts with the Taliban, the Clinton administration shelved any idea of recognizing the regime. Without that U.S. imprimatur, banks and international financial institutions would not lend money to build the pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan.

The indefinite delay left Niyazov with few options at a time when he was under pressure to find new sources of gas revenue.

Turkmenistan's gas exports had peaked in 1991 before sliding sharply. Debt-ridden customers such as Ukraine and Georgia fell behind on payments, and deliveries were reduced. Niyazov began scouting potential new customers in Pakistan, Turkey and China.

In August 1997, the Russian gas monopoly Gazprom abruptly severed an arrangement that had allowed Turkmenistan to use Gaz prom's pipeline system to export 700 billion cubic feet of gas annually to Western Europe for payment in dollars.

Gazprom's diminutive but volatile chief, Rem Vyakhirev, announced that Turkmenistan could keep using his pipeline network to supply customers in the former Soviet Union but not to reach European customers. Russia would keep those markets for itself. Vyakhirev sarcastically promised to do what he could to keep the Turkmen population "from starving to death."

At an angry meeting with Vyakhirev in Moscow, Niyazov made his countermove. According to an account he later gave an American, the Turkmen leader declared, "We will cut off our gas."

With the route to Pakistan blocked and relations with the Russians on the rocks, Niyazov was running out of options. He still had one obvious outlet, however, one certain to catch the attention of both Washington and Moscow.

Niyazov's interest in Iran as a pipeline route had not ended with the failure of the Haig proposal. In the summer of 1997, a $200 million pipeline to carry modest amounts of Turkmen gas into northern Iran was already under construction. Niyazov had also hired the British-Dutch conglomerate Royal Dutch/Shell to study various pipeline options, including one across northern Iran to Turkish power plants.

For centuries, Turkmenistan's trade routes had run westward across northern Iran, home to at least 1 million ethnic Turkmen. Now tractor-trailers carrying goods from the Persian Gulf crossed into Turkmenistan from Iran and barreled north to old Silk Road cities such as Bukhara and Samarkand, in Uzbekistan, and Almaty, in Kazakhstan. Trains hauling Japanese and South Korean cars entered Turkmenistan from Iran at a new railroad crossing at the town of Sarakhs.

The sudden prospect of a substantial share of the world's natural gas flowing through Iran galvanized the Clinton administration last fall into taking a harder look at its Caspian policy. Administration support for U.S. oil companies in the Caspian had been fitful at best since 1993. Many oil executives were unhappy with the Clinton team, complaining of turf battles, heavy turnover of key officials and lack of coordination.

In Azerbaijan the main consortium of Western oil companies could detect few clear signals from Washington as it pondered a decision about the route of the principal pipeline to carry 1 million barrels a day of Azeri oil to world markets.

The shortest and cheapest path led to a tanker port on Georgia's Black Sea coast, but the added oil cargoes would jeopardize the narrow, environmentally fragile Bosphorus Strait en route to the Mediterranean. Instead, Turkey favored a big pipeline from Baku to Ceyhan, a well-outfitted Turkish oil port in the eastern Mediterranean.

That debate, along with Niyazov's overtures to Iran, forced an inter agency group in Washington to pull together a comprehensive Caspian policy reflecting U.S. interests.

The result, unveiled last November by Federico Peña, then energy secretary, was a proposed Eurasian Transportation Corridor made up of gas and oil lines skirting both Russia and Iran. The plan envisioned a skein of east-west pipelines starting on the east side of the Caspian and passing under the sea before continuing to Turkey and the Mediterranean.

The trans-Caspian oil connection fit the needs of a number of U.S. oil giants. To Chevron Corp., Mobil Corp. and Texaco Inc., which had major oil concessions east of the Caspian, it offered an alternative to Russia. Amoco Corp., Exxon Corp., Pennzoil Co. and Unocal also wanted more crude coming from east of the Caspian to help defray costs of the big pipeline planned to transport Azeri oil.

A parallel trans-Caspian corridor for gas had a more openly geopolitical purpose. It would, according to oil analysts, reassure pro-Israeli factions and anti-Iranian hard-liners in the United States of the administration's commitment to isolate the Tehran regime. When Niyazov made his first official visit to Washington last spring, President Clinton touted the trans-Caspian gas line as an alternative to the Shell pipeline across Iran.

Hardly had the administration unveiled its policy, however, than hints of a U.S. thaw toward Iran muddied the issue once again. In May, the White House announced it would not sanction French, Russian and Malaysian companies for developing Iran's largest offshore gas field. A month later, Secretary of State Madeleine K. Albright called for the United States and Iran to develop "a road map leading to normal relations."

The possibility of U.S.-Iranian detente undercut the argument against a gas line across northern Iran and divided the big U.S. oil companies.

Mobil, which wanted U.S permission to deliver small amounts of oil to Iran from its concession in western Turkmenistan, urged the Clinton administration to seize "a unique opportunity to engage" Tehran. But Amoco, representing the consortium developing Azeri fields, warned State Department officials in July that an Iranian pipeline could divert the volumes needed to justify building the Azerbaijan-Turkey route.

That high-level meeting reflected Niyazov's success in drawing the U.S. government into a search for solutions to his energy problems. Even so, it was becoming evident that the administration's ability to convert its pipeline vision into a reality was circumscribed by budgetary, ethnic and foreign policy factors.

For example, the U.S. government could provide only limited assistance to pipeline construction across the Caspian, administration officials said, because Congress would not subsidize U.S. oil and gas companies. Barring subsidized loans, the administration was limited to offering modest loan guarantees and political risk insurance.

Greek American and Armenian American lobbies also denounced legislation that supported the administration's east-west pipeline corridor. The ethnic lobbies contended the corridor would strengthen Turkey and Azerbaijan, enemies of their ancestral homelands. The legislation languishes.

But those obstacles proved minor compared to the greatest risk posed by the U.S. pipeline proposal: the prospect of a conflict with Moscow.

Morgan reported from Turkmenistan, Scotland and Texas; Ottaway reported from Moscow, Washington and Texas.

© 1998 The Washington Post Company

FAIR USE NOTICE: This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of criminal justice, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond 'fair use', you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.