Pakistan pushes to start Turkmenistan pipeline

Senior officials of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India ink the framework of an agreement.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will push hard for quick implementation of a long-delayed trans-regional gas pipeline from Turkmenistan in a bid to ease its mounting energy crisis, the petroleum minister said on Tuesday.

Senior officials of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India on Monday inked the framework of an agreement to construct the project with an estimated value of $3.3 billion. The Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India (Tapi) project would pump natural gas to Pakistan and India through the southern Afghan province of Kandahar.

But analysts said the agreement was still at a preliminary stage and that security challenges in Afghanistan and the tensions between India and Pakistan remained an obstacle.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 22^nd, 2010.