ALMATY, Kazakhstan  A 246-foot tall, rocket ship-like monument to the late ruler of Turkmenistan, topped with a golden statue of himself that rotates to always face the sun, will be removed from the center of the Turkmen capital, state news media there have reported.

A decision by President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov to move the monument was his latest step in dismantling the personality cult of Saparmurat Niyazov, whose often bizarre decrees turned the isolated, energy-rich country into the punch line of a bad international joke.

The president had already reversed Mr. Niyazov’s order renaming the days of the week and months of the year in honor of himself and his family. He had also ended the bans on opera, ballet and the circus, which Mr. Niyazov had decreed un-Turkmen, and lifted restrictions on the Internet.

The monument, erected in 1998 and known as the Neutrality Arch, remains the most prominent icon to Mr. Niyazov, who ruled the desert nation of five million people from its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 to his death in 2006. A giant white tripod with an Eiffel Tower-type observation deck, the monument is capped with a spinning 39-foot-tall effigy of Mr. Niyazov.