BAKU, Azerbaijan, November 12. Turkmenistan and UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) have considered opportunities to strengthen cooperation on migration and refugee-related issues, the country's State Migration Service reported.
The discussions took place during a meeting between representatives of the State Migration Service of Turkmenistan and Mahir Safarli, Head of the UNHCR Regional Representation for Central Asia. The sides reviewed projects implemented by Turkmenistan in cooperation with the UNHCR Regional Representation and discussed their priority areas.
Particular attention was paid to Turkmenistan’s experience in eliminating statelessness. The country completed this work in 2024 in close cooperation with the UNHCR.
“Turkmenistan successfully completed work on the full elimination of statelessness in its territory in 2024 in close cooperation with the UNHCR,” the State Migration Service noted in its statement.
The meeting also addressed opportunities for partnership in the field of international migration. Both sides expressed their readiness to continue cooperation on initiatives and programs related to peace, security and sustainable development.
Notably, Turkmenistan has made the elimination of statelessness a key area of cooperation with the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR). In October 2024, the country became the second in the world to resolve all known cases of statelessness. The achievement followed the naturalization of a final group of 1,146 people in September 2024. In February 2025, the government reported that no stateless people remained in the country as of December 31, 2024. UNHCR subsequently verified the information through its own review of cases.
Since the launch of the UNHCR-backed global #IBelong campaign in 2014, Turkmenistan has introduced procedures to identify stateless people and amended legislation to ensure the registration at birth of all children born in the country, including those whose parents lack identity documents. The country is also the only state in Central Asia that is party to both the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons and the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness.
Cooperation with UNHCR also covers refugee protection and asylum procedures. Turkmenistan adopted its first Law on Refugees in 1997 and acceded to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol in 1998. The State Migration Service is responsible for registering asylum-seekers and determining refugee status. According to UNHCR, at the end of 2024, Turkmenistan hosted 12 refugees recognized under the agency’s mandate, as well as more than 3,000 people in refugee-like situations, primarily from Afghanistan.
