TAPI Pipeline Will Top Agenda During Indian PM Modi's Turkmenistan Visit

TAPI natural gas pipeline will top Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s agenda during his visit to Turkmenistan next month, India Asian News Service (IANS) reported Monday.

Modi will discuss the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline with Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhammadov during his July 10-11 visit to the Central Asian nation.

Turkmenistan's envoy to India Parakhat H. Durdyev said that the TAPI project would be very much part of the agenda of talks during Modi's visit, IANS reported.

Durdyev said that all parties, including Pakistan and Afghanistan, would go along with the project. "TAPI should go along; all parties have committed," he said at a talk on "India-Central Asia Relations: the Road Ahead" in New Delhi.

The envoy said the legal framework for the pipeline project is to be finalised by September after which the consortium leader would be announced. The project is expected to take off in December, he said.

Last week Pakistani newspaper Business Recorder reported that representatives from TAPI countries will meet in Dubai next month to discuss pending issues so that work on the pipeline could begin by year-end.

Last year, gas companies of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India established a company that will build, own and operate the planned 1,800-kilometer TAPI natural gas pipeline. The pipeline will export up to 33 billion cubic meters of natural gas a year from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India over 30 years.