Turkmenistan, Ashgabat, Feb. 8 / Trend H. Hasanov /
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, Lynne Tracy has discussed issues of further increasing productive bilateral cooperation in Ashgabat, the Turkmen government reported on Friday.
'During the discussions, special attention was paid to the issues of effectively increasing bilateral cooperation in the fuel energy sector', the statement said.
In addition, the interest of the two countries in further intensification of mutually beneficial cooperation in a range of areas, including trade and economy, transport and communication sectors was discussed.
The information also notes the American diplomat's opinion that Turkmenistan's strategy to ensure global energy security and development of large scale cooperation has found widespread acceptance in the United States.
As noted earlier, consistently strengthening the economic power of Turkmenistan, the created opportunities for business, as well as enormous mineral wealth increasingly attracts representatives from leading world companies, including the U.S. business circles, the report of Turkmen government said.
The meeting participants called for continuation of regular bilateral contacts and consultations on various issues of mutual interest.
In recent years, Barack Obama's administration set a course of rapprochement with Caspian Turkmenistan. Exhibitions of American companies were held in Ashgabat, followed by a business forum and high level meetings.
Political consultations became regular and cooperation is continuing in areas such as the supply of agricultural equipment, modernisation of Turkmenistan's civil aviation fleet and imports of power equipment.
Representative offices of large U.S. companies such as Chevron, ExxonMobil, General Electric and Case were opened in Turkmenistan, a number of which previously worked through intermediaries.
The White House began actively supporting the regional gas pipeline projects from Turkmenistan and in particular, TAPI.
Negotiations are being held on the development of hydrocarbon fields in Turkmenistan, a country that ranks fourth in the world for natural gas reserves. Ashgabat invited world companies to the development of the Turkmen shelf of the Caspian Sea. Chevron, ExxonMobil, Conoco Phillips, Honeywell and some others are frequently listed amongst those interested.