Leaders from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Turkmenistan said a new pipeline being built between their countries is the start of a major new energy, road, and communications corridor connecting Central Asia with South Asia.<\/p>\n
“South Asia is being connected with Central Asia through Afghanistan after more than a century of division,” Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said at the inauguration on February 23 in his country’s western city, Herat, of the $10 billion pipeline that should carry Turkmen gas to South Asia.<\/p>\n
Pakistani Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi said the pipeline would lead to the development of broader road, rail, and communications networks between the countries.<\/p>\n
“It will lead from a gas pipeline into an energy and communication corridor,” he said.<\/p>\n
The Turkmenistan through Afghanistan to Pakistan and India (TAPI) project, supported by the United States and the Asian Development Bank, has been touted by energy-rich Turkmenistan for years as a way to get its gas onto world markets.<\/p>\n
Turkmenistan, which currently sells gas only to China, started construction on its section of the pipeline in 2015.<\/p>\n
But work was delayed on the section in southern Afghanistan, where the pipeline is due to run for hundreds of kilometers through areas controlled by Taliban insurgents fighting the Western-backed government in Kabul.<\/p>\n
In a surprise move on February 23, the Taliban issued statements pledging its cooperation, saying the pipeline would be an important element in building up Afghanistan’s economic infrastructure.<\/p>\n
“There will be no delay in this important national project,” it said.<\/p>\n
Backers of the planned 1,800-kilometer pipeline say it will ease energy deficits in South Asia and help reduce tensions in the divided region.<\/p>\n
Afghan officials say Kabul will earn some $500 million annually in transit duties and that the project will help create thousands of jobs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Leaders from Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Turkmenistan said a new pipeline being built between their countries is the start of a major new energy, road, and communications corridor connecting Central Asia with South Asia. “South Asia is being connected with Central Asia through Afghanistan after more than a century of division,” Afghan President Ashraf Ghani said at the inauguration on February… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-analysis-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1550"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1551,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1550\/revisions\/1551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/baileyonlineclassroom.com\/southandcentralasiablog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}