Population figures
Total country population
6,598,071
Forcibly displaced population
Refugees (under UNHCR's mandate):
3,514
Asylum-seekers:
0
IDPs (of concern to UNHCR):
0
Other people in need of international protection:
0
Other
Statelessness persons
2,790
Host community
0
Others of concern to UNHCR
0
Country context
Turkmenistan is a landlocked country in Central Asia bordered by Kazakhstan to the northwest, Uzbekistan to the north, east and northeast, Afghanistan to the southeast, Iran to the south and southwest, and the Caspian Sea to the west.
Turkmenistan has been party to the 1951 Convention relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol since 1998. Issues regarding asylum are governed by the Law of Asylum adopted in June 2017 and which superseded the 2012 Law on Refugees. There have been no amendments to the 2017 Law of Asylum to date. Turkmenistan hosts Afghan nationals who have lived in scattered communities since the 1990s, as well as approximately a smaller number of Afghan students. Turkmenistan hosts a small number of mandate refugees, from
Afghanistan, Azerbaijan from the Russian Federation. While these mandate refugees are socially and culturally integrated, they do not
have a secure legal status and as a result they cannot access employment and public services such as health care, which exacerbates their vulnerability. They are not allowed to engage in formal income-generating activities and are unable to support themselves.
Together with government counterparts in Turkmenistan, UNHCR maintains joint workplans which outline activities through the year to protect and promote the rights of people forced to flee. The workplans include capacity building initiatives for local executive bodies,
development of joint proposals to improve legislation related to refugee rights, capacity building of competent government authorities on emergency preparedness, response in case of mass influx of refugees, and other related activities for the protection of the rights of
asylum-seekers, refugees and stateless persons.
As a country neighbouring Afghanistan, Turkmenistan is part of the 2022 Afghanistan Situation Regional Refugee Response Plan (RRP) alongside Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan and Uzbekistan. The RRP seeks to support host governments to meet the needs of Afghans of
varying statuses, including refugees, asylum-seekers and undocumented people, as well as host communities, and potential new arrivals.
Turkmenistan is the only country in Central Asia that has acceded to the 1954 Convention relating to the Status of Stateless Persons, in December 2011, and to the 1961 Convention on the Reduction of Statelessness, in August 2012. The 2013 Law on Citizenship, which superseded the 1992 Law on Citizenship, regulates the naturalization procedure. In July 2020, the Law on Civil Status Acts entered into force with the main purpose to prevent childhood statelessness. The new legislation provides that all children born in the country – including those with undocumented parents – will have their births registered.
