calculating the USSR’s exchange funds and adding the gold in the gold reserves.

The credits of Türkmenistan on separation from the USSR, up to 4 December 1991 were fixed as 1 billion 87 million US dollars. The debt Türkmenistan owed to the USSR was 707 million US dollars. The final account was fixed such that USSR owed Türkmenistan 380 million US dollars.

This debt had to be paid by the Russian Federation, heir of the USSR.

I understood the fact that these were notional credits and that we would not get our credits because of the tight economic borders of the Russian Federation. That’s why I thought that it would be better for us to separate peacefully. I put my idea to the first president, Boris Yeltsin, and he supported my proposal to donate our credits. We made a contract between the Republic of Türkmenistan and Russia, preparing a proposal for a treaty complying with International Law. The content of the treaty is below:

The AGREEMENT, between Türkmenistan and the Russian Federation, is to regulate the legal matters succeeding from the debts and credits of the former USSR to foreign states.

Türkmenistan and the Russian Federation

confirm the memorandum, dated 28 October 1991, on the mutual agreement regulating the debts of the USSR and its legal successors to the foreign creditors and the contract, dated 4 December 1991, regulating the legal matters succeeding from the debts and credits of the USSR to foreign states,