TAPI; We don’t have enmity with any country, We want National Interests – says Ghani
The great TAPI project that enlightened the Afghan people’s eyes towards the future opened at the Mawlana-Herat Hall on Friday Afternoon.
The great TAPI project that enlightened the Afghan people’s eyes towards the future opened at the Mawlana-Herat Hall on Friday Afternoon.
The work on the Afghan section was started after the construction of the Turkmenistan section was completed which was started in 2015.
Turkmenistan president, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedow, Pakistani PM, Shahid Khaqan Abbasi, Indian Minister of State for External Affairs, M.J. Akbar, and Afghan president Ashraf Ghani attended the ground breaking ceremony of Afghanistan’s Herat province.
The Afghan president Ashraf Ghani, called it “cooperation and development corridor” between central and south Asia.
“We don’t have enmity with any country, just we want to safeguard our national interests (…) we hope this (TAPI) would be a foundation for broader regional cooperation” and to improve “trust” among the regional countries,” Ghani said. “Regional cooperation will transform us from poverty to richness.”
Ghani said TAPI project is not only a pipeline but now it turned to a collection of projects and a “development corridor.”
Turkmenistan President meanwhile stressed the need for increasing his country’s cooperation with Afghanistan.
He said the implementation of the TAPI project is the biggest achievement for the countries involved, adding that the project has a good impact on Afghanistan’s security and economy.
He vowed to provide more opportunities of development projects in Afghanistan.
On his part Pakistan prime minster assured Afghan president that your success is our success, your development is our development, and your peace is Pakistan’s peace” to assure Afghans that Pakistan will cooperation in implementation of the project in Afghanistan.
Indian Minister of State for External Affairs, Akbar also emphasized on importance of the project for the four countries.
“TAPI is important for India” as India’s need for energy is being increased and Turkmenistan’s gas through TAPI for India would be “important source of energy.”
He also called on the participating countries to increase cooperation to improve transit between them. “Why we cannot be enabled to make the borders small obstacles” saying the countries should work to ease cross border movements of the citizens.
However, the project is expected to help Afghanistan’s economic growth. In addition to the gas transit the project will create thousands of job opportunities and Kabul will annually receive approximately $400 million as a transit fee from the project.
The project will cost $7.5billion and is scheduled to be completed by 2019. The pipeline will have a length of 1,814km and 816km of it will cross through the five western provinces of Afghanistan to enter Pakistan’s Quetta city and finally will reach the Fazilka city of India.
There will be also an electricity, fiber optic and railway project also build parallel with the TAPI pipeline.
