Nurmuhammed Hanamov Head of the opposition Republican Party of Turkmenistan. Date of Birth: 01.01.1945 Country: Turkmenistan

Biography of Nurmuhammed Khanamov

Nurmuhammed Charyevich Khanamov was born on January 1, 1945, in the city of Tedzhen, in the Ashgabat region of the Turkmen SSR. His father, Chary Khanamov, was the head of an elite cotton breeding collective farm and a Hero of Socialist Labor. In 1970, Khanamov graduated from the Turkmen Polytechnic Institute and began working in the management of "Karakumstroy," a special operational organization responsible for the functioning of the Karakum Canal and the reclamation system in the Murgab and Tedzhen river areas. He rose from an engineer to become the head of the department.

In 1990-1994, Khanamov led the State Committee for Material and Technical Supply of Turkmenistan (Gossnab), through which large-scale export-import operations, including the sale of petroleum products, were conducted. According to some reports, Khanamov received permission from Turkmenistan's President Saparmurat Niyazov in 1991 to establish a commercial organization called "Turkmenvneshorgbank" within Gossnab. This organization resold oil and cotton abroad and used the proceeds to purchase consumer goods.

In August 1994, Khanamov was appointed as the Ambassador of Turkmenistan to Turkey, and in June 1995, he concurrently took on the role of Ambassador to Israel.

On February 4, 2002, in a press conference in Ankara, Khanamov announced his resignation, opposition to Niyazov, and forced exile from Turkmenistan. He stated that he could no longer justify Niyazov's shameless lies and audacity to the Turkish people. Khanamov mentioned that in October 2001, Niyazov had threatened him with criminal prosecution for alleged manipulations he had committed as the head of Gossnab in the early 1990s. After leaving government service, Khanamov joined the National Democratic Movement of Turkmenistan (NDMT) and became its co-chairman. He coordinated the activities of the NDMT alongside Boris Shikhmuradov, the former Deputy Prime Minister and ex-Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan who fled the country in November 2001. Throughout 2002, Khanamov and Shikhmuradov coordinated the NDMT's actions from different countries, including Russia.

On November 25, 2002, Turkmen authorities announced an assassination attempt on Niyazov. Khanamov and Shikhmuradov were named as the organizers of the plot. In December 2002, Khanamov was sentenced in absentia to life imprisonment. Shikhmuradov, who returned to Turkmenistan, was also sentenced to life imprisonment, which was carried out. According to media reports, the former minister was forced to return to the country due to the persecution of his relatives. After the verdict, Turkmen television aired a recording of Shikhmuradov's confession, in which he admitted to being part of a criminal group that recruited mercenaries and planned a terrorist attack against Niyazov.

On May 28, 2005, the Republican Party of Turkmenistan (RPT) was formed based on the NDMT, with Khanamov as its leader. In this position, he actively collaborated with international human rights organizations and succeeded in having the Niyazov regime condemned by the United Nations Human Rights Committee. Observers noted that Khanamov and the RPT leaned more toward the United States than Europe and even less toward Russia, as the latter was heavily dependent on Turkmen energy supplies and remained relatively loyal to Niyazov.

On December 21, 2006, following Niyazov's sudden cardiac arrest, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, the Minister of Health and Deputy Prime Minister, temporarily assumed the duties of the President of Turkmenistan. On December 25, Khanamov announced his intention to fight for power. If he were to come to power, he promised to melt down the golden monuments dedicated to Niyazov, dissolve all government institutions, and hold a nationwide referendum on adopting a new constitution. Simultaneously, he warned that if democratic elections were not ensured in the country, "cataclysms could occur... without bloodshed, it cannot be avoided." The elections for the new leader of Turkmenistan were scheduled for February 11, 2007.

Khanamov is married, and he and his wife have two sons, Serdar and Batyr. On January 19, 2005, both of Khanamov's younger sons died in a car accident in the Moscow region. Khanamov believed that the car crash was the result of a terrorist act carried out by Turkmen special services. However, the Russian Prosecutor's Office classified the incident as an accident.