This week, on 22 April 2009, the European Parliament approved an interim trade agreement with Turkmenistan (for the full text of the resolution see here). Such an agreement would facilitate market access of Turkmen goods to the European Community and vice versa. This information would probably not be worthy of more than a minor note in some EU newsletter if Turkmenistan was not a notorious human rights violator. Similar to its neighbor country Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan is known for having in place one of the most authoritarian regimes, a large number of political prisoners, and a ban on international NGOs and…