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Shopkeepers and hairdressers are reporting a sudden relaxation in a campaign to drive them out of the Turkmen capital Ashgabat.

These and other small businesses, including grocers, seamstresses and car repair shops, have come under periodic pressure over the last two years , they told the Chronicles of Turkmenistan opposition news site.

The most recent effort came last summer, when some corner shops were even ordered to brick up their windows.

'Going underground'

Businesses complained that they rather than exiled to the Bedew Industrial Zone on the city outskirts, Radio Liberty's Turkmen Service reported at the time.

Many beauty salons "went underground" and started to operate out of rented flats - an option not open to the restaurants or garages that were ordered to close in September, Chronicles reports.

But now they are being allowed to re-open in their own buildings, basements and ground floors of blocks of flats, and are "very happy" with their changed circumstances, the Moscow news site says.

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It is not clear why the authorities have abruptly changed tack, but that is not surprising in itself - the authoritarian Turkmen government often acts in an arbitrary manner, and rarely explains its policy decisions to the closely-controlled media.

Some shopkeepers see a link with new rules approved by President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov last month to " and stimulate free enterprise and competition".

But others put it down to the aftermath of a , who was a major player on the Ashgabat property market before getting a long prison term in October.

His alleged patrons, including the long-serving and well-connected interior minister Isgender Mulikov, were also jailed, with the latter suffering the added indignity of being .

Reporting by Martin Morgan

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