Serkhetabat
\nTurkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India on Friday ceremonially broke ground on the Afghan section of an ambitious, multi-billion dollar gas pipeline expected to help ease energy deficits in South Asia.<\/p>\n
Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Turkmen counterpart Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov joined Pakistani premier Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and India\u2019s External Affairs Minister Shri M J Akbar for the ceremony at gas-rich Turkmenistan\u2019s border with Afghanistan.<\/p>\n
Dignitaries including diplomats from the foreign missions in Turkmenistan were greeted by Turkmen national songs and traditional nomadic tents serving up food on an overcast day at the border post of Serkhetabat, once the southernmost tip of the Soviet Union.<\/p>\n
Speaking at the ceremony, Ghani said the pipeline would \u201cunite (the) countries\u201d in quotes translated into Russian for reporters at the ceremony.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere were pessimistic voices, but now we are witnessing the construction of the TAPI gas pipeline,\u201d said Ghani, using the acronym for the conduit which takes its name from the four countries.<\/p>\n
The quartet aims to complete the 1,840-kilometre (1,143-mile) pipeline and begin pumping natural gas from Turkmenistan\u2019s giant Galkynysh gas field by the beginning of 2020.<\/p>\n
While the pipeline will traverse war-wracked Afghanistan, raising security concerns, the bulk of the 33 billion cubic metres of gas to be pumped annually through the conduit will be purchased by South Asian rivals Pakistan and India.<\/p>\n
Turkmen strongman Berdymukhamedov, whose country currently depends heavily on China as a market for its natural gas exports, called diversification of gas deliveries an \u201cimportant part of the politics\u201d of the isolated Central Asian country.<\/p>\n
And he said work on the Turkmen section of the pipeline was still ongoing.<\/p>\n
India\u2019s commitment to the pipeline has previously been questioned over its relationship with Pakistan and easy-access to liquified natural gas markets seen as potential stumbling blocks.<\/p>\n
But India\u2019s minister of state for external affairs M J Akbar hailed the project as \u201ca symbol of our goals\u201d and \u201ca new page in cooperation\u201d between the four countries in a speech at the ceremony today.<\/p>\n
The overall funding picture for the mammoth gas pipeline remains unclear, with commercial energy giants such as France\u2019s Total failing to follow up on reported interest in the project.<\/p>\n
Turkmenistan sits on the world\u2019s fourth-largest gas reserves but lost a major buyer in Russia after Russian energy giant Gazprom wound down imports of Turkmen gas and then ceased purchases completely in 2016.<\/p>\n
Heavy security will guard the pipeline construction through war-weary Afghanistan, AP quoted Jelani Farhad, spokesman for the Herat provincial governor\u2019s office as saying.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a golden day for Afghanistan today,\u201d Farhad said. \u201cIt will help our economy and create thousands of jobs.\u201d The United States has advocated the pipeline as a source of much needed gas to all three countries over an alternative pipeline, which is also being negotiated, bringing gas from Iran through Pakistan and into India.<\/p>\n
Security has been a leading concern leading up to the inauguration but Farhad said Afghanistan has devised a detailed security plan to protect the pipeline construction as well as the pipeline.<\/p>\n
Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid told the AP in a telephone interview that the religious movement was ready to guarantee the pipeline\u2019s security. \u201cWe are ready to protect TAPI. It is good and important and vital for the economy of Afghanistan,\u201d he said, noting the pipeline had been under consideration during the Taliban rule that ended in 2001.<\/p>\n
The pipeline will carry gas from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and India through Afghanistan\u2019s Herat, Farah, Helmand and Nimroz provinces.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Serkhetabat Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India on Friday ceremonially broke ground on the Afghan section of an ambitious, multi-billion dollar gas pipeline expected to help ease energy deficits in South Asia. Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Turkmen counterpart Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov joined Pakistani premier Shahid Khaqan Abbasi and India\u2019s External Affairs Minister Shri M J Akbar […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22921,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[410],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-22920","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22920","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22920"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22920\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22922,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22920\/revisions\/22922"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}