Over the past several years, the policies of Turkmenistan's government have left the country increasingly isolated. His country has little interaction with the other CIS nations.
Foreigners find it ever more difficult to enter the country.
The government strictly controls access to the Internet. Human rights and press freedom organizations regularly denounce the Turkmen government for violations. Turkmenistan is recognized by the UN as a neutral nation, but it may be more accurate to call the country isolationist. It refused either to join the organization's customs union or to sign its Collective Security Treaty. And it is the only one of the five Central Asian nations that is not in the Central Asian Economic Union.