ASHGABAT, June 9. /TASS/. The defense ministers of Russia and Turkmenistan, Sergey Shoigu and Yaylym Berdiev, have established promising areas of bilateral cooperation in the military sphere and coordinated concrete steps to strengthen Turkmenistan’s army, Russian Defense Ministry’s official spokesman Igor Konashenkov told journalists on Thursday.
"During talks, the sides discussed relevant issues of bilateral military and military-technical cooperation, as well as problems of regional and global security," Konashenkov said.
He also noted that "promising directions of deepening Russian-Turkmen cooperation in the military sphere were established, and concrete steps to strengthen Turkmenistan’s Armed Forces were coordinated."
"First of all, it concerns providing them [Turkmenistan’s Armed Forces] with compatible weapons and military equipment, military training, organizing events for operational training and information exchange. The sides discussed issues of improving the bilateral normative legal base in the sphere of joint security, as well as confidence-building measures in military activities on the Caspian Sea," Konashenkov noted.
"Great potential for cooperation in the spheres of humanitarian demining, military medicine, sports and culture" was also noted at the talks, the Defense Ministry’s spokesman added. The sides "agreed to coordinate in the future their joint actions for maintaining peace and stability in Central Asia," Konashenkov concluded.