Bagging an interview with a president is a coup for any journalist.

To get a sit-down with the leader of profoundly self-isolating Turkmenistan, though, that is something else.

The recent honour of putting questions to Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov, the de facto co-president (technically, he is the “National Leader”), fell to reporter Laura Buckwell.

The 11-minute interview, aired on Lyon-based international broadcaster Euronews earlier this month, was a largely anodyne exchange clearly based on pre-agreed questions. Berdymukhamedov rehearsed familiar lines about Turkmenistan’s neutrality, the size of his country’s natural gas reserves, and the need for economic cooperation with neighbouring Afghanistan and greater regional coordination in the use of water.

The main point of interest in the interview was that it happened at all.

Foreign journalists are almost never permitted to enter the country. Even aspiring tourists need to jump through multiple hoops and pay over the odds for guided tours to gain access. Several travel-focused YouTube creators have had fun with their puzzled dispatches from Ashgabat’s desolate airport and streets.

Berdymukhamedov’s desire to open a public line of dialogue with the outside world – and the West in particular – will be read as indicative of a sea change.

Talk of a potential micro-opening has been occasioned by an apparent surge in attempted engagement from the European Union, which is eyeing the prospect of buying Turkmen gas as part of its strategy to substitute now largely suspended imports from Russia.

On March 4, the newly installed European Union special representative for Central Asia, Eduards Stiprais, travelled to Turkmenistan for a three-day visit.

As an official statement noted, this trip occurred “just three days after his appointment” – a fact that Stiprais’ office said was a sign of “the importance the European Union places on its engagement with Turkmenistan and Central Asia.”

Stiprais should have been joined by an even more important colleague: Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign policy chief. But her visit was postponed “due to illness,” according to an official statement. It is not yet known when she will make it to Ashgabat.

The long-standing and elusive idea of Turkmen gas reaching European markets gained a bit more traction in February when Turkey and Turkmenistan agreed on a swap deal in which Turkmenistan will supply gas to Iran, and Iran will, in turn, deliver an equivalent amount to Turkey.

Officials in Tehran confirmed last week that this exchange of gas is already happening.

“The contract is now in effect, and gas is flowing. We can say the contract is active,” Iranian Oil Minister Mohsen Paknejad was quoted as telling reporters. “However, for other aspects, we must wait a bit longer until they become ready for media release.”

Under this arrangement, Turkmenistan will be required to supply Turkey with up to 2 billion cubic metres of gas annually.

Still, that volume is risible in terms of Europe’s energy needs. Failure to make progress on developing a trans-Caspian gas pipeline route – an idea rendered remote by Russia’s potential to act as a spoiler – will limit Turkmenistan’s ability to contribute significantly to the broader geopolitical landscape.

Another Brussels apparatchik sweeping this week through Turkmenistan, along with the other four countries of Central Asia, is Jozef Síkela, the EU Commissioner for International Partnerships. His mission is to inspect the Caspian port of Turkmenbashi.

“Trade between Europe and Asia is growing fast. But to make it stable and efficient, we are developing the Trans-Caspian Transport Corridor – a fast, secure route connecting Europe and Asia in 15 days or less, and an alternative to Russian and Red Sea routes,” Síkela wrote in a tweet trailing his tour.

Síkela described Turkmenbashi as a gateway to that corridor.

On point of fact, there are other outlets on the eastern shores of the Caspian Sea – in Kazakhstan. As the former U.S. ambassador in Ashgabat, Matthew Klimow, explained in a recent talk, Turkmenistan is not immediately appealing.

“If you’re talking about … getting goods from China to the Caspian ports and onto destinations in Europe or elsewhere, [the port of] Aktau is frankly the logical place to go in Kazakhstan. There’s less border crossings,” he said. “One of the things I learned in spades as a diplomat is the horrendous waste, graft, [and] corruption that take place when goods have to cross a physical border. Delays take weeks, not just days, in many cases.”

But there is only so much that Aktau can accommodate for now.

“It would make sense for the overflow to do a north-south leg down from Aktau south to Turkmenbashi port,” Klimow said. “You could improve the infrastructure and the border crossings there to make some good use of [Turkmenbashi], which is, I think, pretty feasible.”

In a neat piece of timing, construction work on a new 350-metre bridge across Turkmenistan’s Garabogazkol Bay, which will ease the passage of road freight from Aktau south to Turkmenbashi, is due for completion in May.

Turkmenistan is also spending billions of dollars on building highways running from its border with Uzbekistan, through Ashgabat, to the Caspian shore.

But it is one thing to have roads, and quite another to be able to travel along them with ease.

Likely with considerations of the type mentioned by Klimow in mind, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s office in Ashgabat last week hosted a workshop on the management of border crossing points across Central Asia.

In remarks made at the workshop, John MacGregor, head of the OSCE Centre in Ashgabat, evinced unease at how the excessively security-obsessed way in which borders are managed in Central Asia is coming at a cost.

“It is important to ensure the right balance between enhancing border security, focusing on the evolving threats and the integrated border management strategies employed to manage them while fostering economic growth and increasing trade facilitation,” MacGregor said.

This continent-straddling logistics conversation will be a leading point on the agenda at the upcoming EU-Central Asia summit due to take place in Samarkand, Uzbekistan, in early April.

In his interview to Euronews, Berdymukhamedov signalled that he has high hopes for the Samarkand summit.

“This will be the first Central Asia-European Union summit, which in itself carries special expectations and significance,” he said. “Our countries find the experience, achievements and potential of the European Union in areas such as economy, environment, technology and artificial intelligence to be valuable and relevant.”

The working assumption is that Turkmenistan will be represented at the summit by Berdymukhamedov’s son: the actual president, Serdar Berdymukhamedov.

Turkmenistan’s would-be flirtation with emerging from isolation was hinted at by the presence of yet another foreign visitor in Ashgabat earlier this month: the World Bank’s vice president for Europe and Central Asia, Antonella Bassani.

Discussions between Bassani and President Serdar Berdymukhamedov focused on modernising financial markets, expanding investment opportunities, and digitising the economy, all of which ostensibly aligns with trends among countries seeking greater integration with global markets.

In addition to that, Berdymukhamedov explicitly invited the World Bank to come up with proposals on how it could contribute to the advancement of “regional and international multimodal transport corridors” linking north to south and east to west.

If experience is a guide, optimism around the prospect of Turkmenistan opening up to the world should come with a very hefty dose of caution. Ashgabat is especially adept at trading in false dawns.

Expectations that Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov’s ascent to power in 2006 might presage a season of liberalisation were quickly dashed. When in 2022, his 40-year-old son, Serdar, was handed the reins, some allowed themselves to be deluded into thinking that a young head might usher in a more modern form of rule.

But there is little evidence either of the Berdymukhamedovs is much interested in transparency and accountability, or endowing their population with basic freedoms in expression and movement.

That intransigence may yet scupper European overtures.