Economic Diplomacy and Neighborhood Policy of Iran and Turkmenistan

At present, Iran’s neighbourhood policy toward  the Central Asian region has been preserved based on Iran’s geographical potentials. Turkmenistan is one of the countries in this region being of importance to the foreign policy apparatus by virtue of the neighbourhood policy and sharing a border. Hence, the question raised is what are the capacities and requirements of the Islamic Republic of Iran’s Neighbourhood Policy concerning Turkmenistan? The presumption of the research is that situation  of  Iran and Turkmenistan on each other’s borders and existence of economic, political and cultural potentials create a ground for integration and cooperation between the two countries, and this can help ease Iran’s political and economic bottlenecks. The results of the research show that historically and economically , Turkmenistan has had many cultural commonalities with Iran. In addition, this country enjoys gas resources and various economic grounds. With regard to rivalries among the hostile regional and extra-regional powers  like the US and Israel in this country, on one side, and the existence of wide trade and economic sanctions of the west, Turkmenistan can be a fertile ground for offsetting pressures exerted on Iran and reducing them. The method of the research is qualitative of the descriptive-analytical type, and the data have been collected using the library method and through cataloguing.