Director of the Eurasian Problems Monitoring Center, Arslan Rubayev, whose statement in Russian media outlets initiated a series of reports on the death of President of Turkmenistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, has apologized for false information, according to the Khronika of Turkmenistana (Chronicles of Turkmenistan).
“I am very happy that the reports on Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov’s death were not confirmed. I would like to apologize to the President’s family as well as all Turkmen citizens. It turned out that the information I had previously received was denied by the same source”, Rubayev wrote on his Facebook account.
Rubayev told about Berdimuhamedov’s death in an interview to Govorit Moskva (Moscow Says) Radio Station, referring to his sources in the business community.
Rubayev said he had been informed by businessmen working in Ashgabat. “When I asked if that's a fact, the [businessmen] said: we have friends working with security services, who said it was true, that it happened when he [the president] went on vacation,” Rubayev was quoted as saying.
At the same time, with reference to its sources in Turkmenistan’s political community, the Russian Internet-based media outlet Lenta reported that President Berdimuhamedov departed to Germany to visit his mother who is undergoing a course of treatment, which had been earlier reported by Khronika Turkmenistana.
Recall, representatives of the Embassy of Turkmenistan in Dushanbe have denied media reports about the death of the leader of the country Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov. “This is absolutely lies,” a spokesman for the Turkmen Embassy in Dushanbe said on July 22.
