A recent discovery would prove it. Turkmen Scholar: The Parthian Empire was the first state in world history with legally established neutral status. The Berdymukhamedov family bases its power on respect for traditional cultures.
Moscow () – The Turkmen public television channel Mir 24, which reports to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, broadcast a report on the “sensational” discovery by the historian of Turkmenistan, Džuma Orazklyčev. This would demonstrate that the Parthian Empire, ancestor of the Turkmen people in the 3rd century BC, was the first “neutral State” in history, justifying with those ancestral roots the current policy of the country governed by the Berdymukhamedov family.
The historian had to carefully analyze more than 40,000 pages of ancient texts, a task that took him more than a year. Among others, evidence of Parthian neutrality would also be found in the works of the ancient Greek philosopher Plutarch and the Roman historian Tacitus. In conclusion, says Orazklyčev, “irrefutable evidence has emerged, with references to direct sources, that the Parthian Empire was the first state in world history with a legally established neutral status.”
The Parthians occupied the territory of present-day Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and part of Turkmenistan. Former President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov has repeatedly stated in numerous interviews that the Turkmens are the true founders of Parthia and the Seljuk Empire. The historian’s report confirms that “our State moves according to the most authentic guidelines inherited from our great ancestors.”
It is not the first time that Orazklyčev has made statements attributing to Parthians the original root of the Turkmen state and neutrality. In some previous posts (the latest in 2019) he commented on the Parthian Empire’s pact with the Romans, which would be one of the main proofs of the “neutral superiority” of the Parthians since the earliest times. The Parthian Empire, founded by Arsaces I in 247 BC -which is why it is also called the Arsacid Empire- extended to Mesopotamia and was crossed by the ancient Silk Road, which connected the Roman Empire in the Mediterranean basin with Chinese and allowed flourishing commercial traffic.
The Arsacid “kings of kings” ruled in a decentralized system, placing satraps and vassal kings in the various regions, and for a time the capital was at Nisa, 15 kilometers from the current Turkmen capital Ashgabat. In fact, Rome and Parthia disputed control of the kingdom of Armenia for centuries, without being able to impose themselves on each other, which led in practice to an armed peace that, according to current Turkmen research, resulted in the decision to opt for for neutrality. On the other hand, internal strife within the empire was much more dangerous for the Parthians than foreign invasions.
The syncretistic culture of the Parthians has encouraged Turkmen researchers to even consider them ancestors of many other peoples and cultures, such as the Incas and Aztecs, the Vikings, and the Chinese themselves. Precisely these claims to Turkmen universality had justified the solutions that the Ashgabat government has proposed in recent years to “prevent” the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, which according to the official version has never penetrated Turkmenistan.
The then President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov had asked the Academy of Sciences to investigate in traditional cultures, to which the country can refer more than any other in the world, the necessary measures for health security. That is why the president decided to use “harmal” (Syrian rue), whose vapors – which can be inhaled or simply diffused into the environment – contain all the necessary properties to avoid any type of contagion.
Later research led to the consumption of “solodka”, an ancient licorice that was even easier to ingest, to guarantee Turkmen immunity and “neutrality” of body and soul.
