Turkmenistan, Ashgabat, July 27 / Trend, H.Hasanov /
India and Turkmenistan discussed joint energy projects during Indian Deputy Foreign Minister Jayant Prasad's visit to Ashgabat this week, the Turkmen government reported.
The Turkmen Foreign Ministry held a meeting with the FM to discuss "the possibility of implementing new joint projects of national and regional significance in several priority areas - primarily in the energy, economic, trade and transport spheres," the ministry said in a statement.
According to the ministry, agreements reached in May during Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhammadov's visit to India provided "a powerful impetus to the development of traditional interstate dialogue built on a long-term, mutually beneficial basis."
During an international conference on Afghanistan held recently under the auspices of the U.N. in Kabul, participants discussed the possibility of implementing the large-scale Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline project.
TAPI will measure 1,680 kilometers in length, with a design capacity of 30 billion cubic meters of gas per year. The pipeline will run from the Turkmen Dovletabat fields through Herat and Kandahar (Afghanistan) to Quetta (Pakistan) and Fazlaka on the Indian-Pakistani border.
The main obstacle for the project today is the tense situation in Afghanistan.