ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan, July 30. Turkmenistan and Afghanistan discussed steps to implement TAPI and TAP energy projects, Trend reports.
According to the Turkmen Foreign Ministry, these issues were discussed during the meeting during which the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Turkmenistan, Rashid Meredov, handed Fazal Mohammad Sabir a document on his accreditation in Turkmenistan as Chargé d’affaires of Afghanistan.
The Afghan diplomat has been representing his country in Ashgabat for a number of years.
During the meeting, the sides noted the friendly nature of bilateral relations between the two fraternal states and considered a wide range of issues related to the practical implementation of large-scale energy, transport, and infrastructure international projects implemented with the participation of Turkmenistan and Afghanistan.
They noted that first of all, this is the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) transnational gas pipeline project, the construction of power transmission lines and fiber-optic communication Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (TAP), as well as the construction of railways from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan.
Meanwhile, it is expected that the TAPI gas pipeline will annually transport 33 billion cubic meters of natural gas along an 1800-kilometer route from Turkmen Galkynysh, the second largest gas field in the world, to the Indian city of Fazilka, located near the border of India with Pakistan.
The TAP project is a large-scale infrastructural and economic initiative aimed at establishing links between the participating countries of the project in order to ensure energy and communication integration, as well as stimulate economic growth and development in the region.