Ashgabat, Turkmenistan, Nov. 13
By Huseyn Hasanov – Trend:
Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan exchanged instruments on ratification of the strategic partnership agreement between the two countries, the Turkmen Foreign Ministry said in a message Nov. 13.
The document was signed on March 6, 2017 in Ashgabat following high-level negotiations.
The message says that Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Turkmenistan Rashid Meredov recently met with Uzbekistan’s Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov.
The meeting took place on the sidelines of the EU-Central Asia ministerial meeting, held in Samarkand under the auspices of the United Nations.
Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, which have impressive reserves of hydrocarbon resources, stand for diversifying of energy flows. A good example of this is the implementation of a project to construct the Turkmenistan-Uzbekistan-Kazakhstan-China gas pipeline, which was commissioned in 2009.
Recently, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov invited Uzbek businessmen to participate in the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project.
Construction of the Turkmen section of TAPI started in 2015 and is scheduled to be finished in late 2018.
Total length of the TAPI pipeline will be 1,814 kilometers. A 214-kilometer section of the pipeline will run through Turkmenistan, a 774-kilometer section will run through Afghanistan and an 826-kilometer section will run through Pakistan to Fazilka settlement on the border with India. The pipeline’s annual capacity will be 33 billion cubic meters of gas.