A new French ambassador to Turkmenistan, Jean-Claude Richard, presented his credentials to Turkmen president Saparmurat Niyazov yesterday.

As the Ashgabat correspondent of Turkmenistan.ru reported, the accreditation ceremony was followed by in depth talks on the various issues of mutual interest.

In particular, Saparmurat Niyazov noted that his first meeting with present French President Jacques Chirac took place in the mid 80th when they both in the capacity of mayors of their respective capitals had witnessed the establishment of friendly and cooperative relations between Ashgabat and Paris. "Many years have passed since that time, and we can state today that the seeds of mutual understanding and trust we sowed that time has born good fruits at the new stage of the relations development between our states", the President said. As example of the fruitful partnership, Niyazov cited the work of such French companies as "Buegues", "Tecnip", "Sifal", "Thompson" and "Sersel" in Turkmenistan. These companies have got tens of large projects, both accomplished and in the process of implementation. This experience, the President pointed out, will be used in the near future in the light of the tasks recently set in the National strategy of development of Turkmenistan until 2020.

In this context the sides discussed prospects for cooperation in the energy sector and pointed to the great potential to develop partnership in this field. As Jean-Claude Richard said, French businesses are not only interested in the colossal natural resources of Turkmenistan, but also in the successful and dynamic strategy for developing the national oil and gas sector. In his words one of the leaders of the world oil business "Total" company declared its readiness to establish cooperation with Turkmenistan.

The issue of cooperation in humanitarian field, cultural exchanges in particular, was given special attention at the meeting. It was underlined that currently many Turkmen specialists working in the projects implemented together with French companies were given the opportunity to upgrade their professional skills in France under the programs on French language learning, which are effectively carried out in Turkmenistan.