Turkmenistan´s new president sworn in

Berdymukhamedov was deputy prime minister before being named interim leader following the death of Niyazov in December.

The inauguration ceremony was attended by many foreign leaders, including Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Fradkov and the U.S. assistant secretary of state for south and central Asian affairs, Richard Boucher.

Lying north of Afghanistan and Iran, the nation of 5 million people became independent with the collapse of the former Soviet Union in 1991. Turkmenistan is the top natural gas exporter in the region.

Editor:Du Xiaodan