Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India (TAPI) on Friday signed an operational agreement on an ambition gas pipeline project, a private TV channel reported. The 700 kilometres Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline will carry gas from the natural resource-rich former Soviet state to an energy-starved South Asia.
While supporting the gas supply project, Washington has hailed it as an ideal scheme to tackle energy shortages in Pakistan. The US has been opposed to the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline because of a nuclear stand-off with Tehran. Pakistan and India would each receive about 42 percent of the gas and Afghanistan the remainder. The pipeline will deliver up to 33 billion cubic metres of gas annually.
On July 10, ministers of petroleum from the four countries attended the 18th meeting of the TAPI Steering Committee in Turkmenistan. The pipeline that starts from Dawlatabad area of Turkmenistan and crosses Farah, Herat, Kandahar and Helmand provinces of Afghanistan and reaches India through Pakistan. It is a vital project for Afghanistan, which will receive $450 million annually under the agreement. It will also generate employment for thousands of youth. Around 6,000 Afghan security forces will be deployed to safeguard the pipeline.
There were recently apprehensions that Afghan security forces are ill-equipped to maintain security of pipeline after the withdrawal of international forces from Afghanistan in 2014. However, Sediq Seddiqi, Spokesman for Ministry of Interior Affairs (MoIA), rubbished such fears. The Afghan security forces, he says, are fully motivated and ready to provide security cover for all major economic projects, including TAPI project.
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