TAPI Pipeline Renewal: A Turning Point in Central Asian Dynamics?

The Central Asian countries are taking steps to broaden relations with their southern neighbor, Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, despite the hardline group’s increasingly restrictive policies, particularly towards women.

Kyrgyzstan delisted the Taliban earlier this month, Turkmenistan resumed work with Afghanistan on a major gas pipeline project, and Uzbekistan signed $2.5 billion in cooperation agreements with Kabul during the visit of Prime Minister of the Uzbek Prime Minister in Afghanistan in Afghanistan. August.

Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Jeenbek Kulubaev said on September 6 that the move was aimed at “ensuring regional stability and further developing the ongoing dialogue”.

On September 11, Turkmen and Taliban officials held a ceremony to mark the long-delayed restart of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project, which is designed to transport up to 33 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Turkmenistan to South Asia every year.

The ceremony in the Turkmen border town of Serhetabat was attended by former president Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, head of Turkmenistan’s powerful People’s Council, while the Taliban delegation was led by its prime minister, Mohammad Hassan Akhund, who is on the UN sanctions list.

Turkmen President Serdar Berdymukhammedov joined the ceremony via video link.

The estimated $10 billion TAPI project was first conceived in the 1990s but has been repeatedly delayed due to war and instability in Afghanistan.

Turkmenistan hopes the proposed 1,800 kilometer pipeline will become a key source of revenue for cash-strapped Ashgabat.

And Afghanistan would earn about $500 million in transit fees annually, a major boost to its budget.

The future of TAPI, however, remains in question due to Western sanctions on the Taliban administration and the absence of official recognition by the government in Kabul, which could hinder funding and investment in the project.

No country in the world has officially recognized the Taliban government.

High profile visit

In August, Uzbek Prime Minister Abdulla Oripov went to Kabul, marking the highest-level visit by a foreign government official since the Taliban seized power in Kabul three years ago.

During the visit, Uzbek and Taliban officials signed trade and investment agreements worth about $2.5 billion in the energy, agriculture and manufacturing sectors.

Afghanistan and Kazakhstan announced in August 2023, they planned to increase bilateral trade to $3 billion.

Kazakhstan, Central Asia’s largest economy, was the first country to eliminate the Taliban as a terrorist organization in December 2023.

But while Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan rushed to visit Kabul after the Taliban’s return to power, Tajikistan was the only Central Asian country to take a hard line against Afghanistan’s new rulers.

“Accepting Reality”

Dushanbe’s position was largely linked to its ethnic, linguistic and historical connection with the Taliban’s mainly ethnic Tajik opponents, who are predominantly ethnic Pashto.

But now Tajikistan appears to be improving its policies towards the Taliban in a move that Tajik experts describe as an “acceptance of reality”.

Tajikistan exports electricity to Kabul and has established several mARKETS in the border towns where local merchants from the two sides sell goods. The governments also discussed cooperation in the fight against militants targeting Tajikistan from inside Afghan territory.

Both Dushanbe and Kabul share a common interest in defeating the Islamic State-Khurasan terrorist group, which has recruited many militants from Tajikistan.

Afghan media reported that the head of Tajikistan’s State Committee for National Security, Saimuddin Yatimov, had a meeting with Taliban intelligence chief Abdul Haq Wasiq in late August. Tajik authorities have neither confirmed nor denied these reports.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, an expert in Dushanbe told RFE/RL’s Tajik Service that “given Tajikistan’s vast shared border with Afghanistan, threats of terrorist attacks and economic incentives, Tajik authorities have no choice but to opt for geopolitical cooperation ” with the Taliban.

Some experts say that China and Kazakhstan played a role in persuading Dushanbe to change its attitude towards the Taliban administration.

Addressing senior officials of the Collective Security Treaty Organization in Almaty in June, Kazakh President Qasym-Zhomart Toqaev called the Taliban “a long-term factor” and emphasized what he described as “the importance of developing trade cooperation and economic with modern Afghanistan.”

Via RFE/RL

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