Turkmenistan opened its first two internet cafés on Friday as new President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov moved to fulfil promises of limited reform in the Central Asian nation.
The curtailing of the internet was one of the hard-line moves ordered by late dictator Saparmurat Niyazov. There was no immediate rush to the two cyber-cafés opened in the capital, Ashgabat, though the order issued by Berdymukhammedov within hours of his inauguration on Wednesday was seen as a sign of willingness to carry out some degree of liberalisation. "Our aim is not only to save the results achieved since independence but [also] to reinforce ... state policies and to implement them in the interests of the country's prosperity and people," Berdymukhammedov told Chinese journalists. |