Kazakhstan, Astana, March 19 / Trend D. Mukhtarov /
Afghanistan remains a weak and unpredictable link in the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project, political analyst and expert Yuri Sigov from Washington said.
"The most important thing in the TAPI project is to develop the situation around Afghanistan with the possibility of the Taliban's coming to power in the country after the withdrawal of coalition forces," Sigov told Trend via e-mail today.
"Afghanistan remains the weakest and unpredictable link in the TAPI project taking into account supposedly, commercial benefits and opportunities of Kabul's obtaining the various transit payments."
He said that China has proposed to lay a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to China through the Afghan territory and Tajikistan.
"Incumbent Afghan President Hamid Karzai promised the Chinese he would consider such an initiative thoroughly," the expert said. "He has few chances of staying in power, or leave one of his successors in the country in a senior post after the Americans depart."
He said the current Afghan leadership closely cooperates with the Chinese, but no one can imagine what will happen after the Taliban returns to power. It is unknown whether the Americans will just leave and risking Karzai to face the opposition forces. American, Indian or Pakistani companies will not want and will fail to actively do business in Afghanistan in the case of no security guarantees.
"According to the U.S. experts, the Taliban's supporters may be interested in the TAPI project if they come to power," he said. "As opposed to the current Afghan leadership and its Chinese partners, the Taliban had the idea to lay a gas pipeline to India and Pakistan through their controlled territory and get big profits."
However, such an approach and evaluation suffer from one major gap. No one can guarantee the future behaviour of the Taliban forces after the U.S. military presence in the country is reduced. He added that the U.S is likely to stay on.
This would mean the TAPI project is not only 'great Turkmen gas' which will be distributed via various routes to Asia and Europe, but a global policy.
"Many more powerful powers will play a leading role," he said.