... Islamabad. The United States has also put pressure on the Taliban in peace talks to
remove military personnel and structures
from neighboring countries, a direct reference to Pakistan where the Taliban has a significant presence on the ground.
India
India’s aims in Afghanistan are very clear: to counter the influence of Pakistan and to reduce the potential for Afghan territory to be used as a base for anti-Indian extremism. India has long been opposed to the Taliban and maintained a policy of non-engagement with the group. This policy has recently changed due to the ...
... play a role here.
The idea to build a gas pipeline across South Asia is nothing new. There is already the off-and-on Peace pipeline from Iran to Pakistan and further to India (known as IP Gas), as well as the TAPI gas pipeline (involving Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India). It should be noted that Iran and Turkmenistan, the gas producers for both projects, have already conducted the requisite work, and the relevant pipelines have already been laid. The problem is buyers and transit countries stalling the process....
... expanded composition. This was due to significant deepening of the SCO’s geopolitical dimension following the accession of India and Pakistan last year, whose leaders first took part in the organization’s activities at the Qingdao summit. As a result of the ... ... and extremist activities, the summit participants once again confirmed their unfailing support for regulating the situation in Afghanistan exclusively by peaceful means and by the Afghan people themselves, and called for a strengthening of the mechanisms ...
... but on a new footing. Next in geographical terms would be India – because our relations with India are clear and there are unused opportunities that have been missed in the last 30 years.
How would you characterise the Russia-Pakistan relationship?
Pakistan is an important player, we want to be involved, have a relationship with them. But they are not in the same category as China or India.
Is Russia supporting Taliban in Afghanistan?
We are playing a very complicated game – sometimes we support somebody, sometimes we help somebody else. Taliban is also different. When we saw the US going in with ground troops we were aghast. That was a disaster. Now it’s different ...
... Turkmenistan has been making a number of more or less successful attempts to diversify its supply routes, for example, through the Trans-Caspian pipeline.
An undeniable highlight of the past year has been the December 2015
launch
of the Turkmenistan Afghanistan Pakistan India pipeline project, also known as TAPI. A highly ambitious initiative with its roots going back to the former President of Turkmenistan, the gas pipeline project has been positioned as a pipeline for peace, a means of connecting Afghanistan with the ...
... Ghani’s
visit to India
The two sides considered the trade and transit agreement signed by Afghanistan and Pakistan in 2011. Modi stated that India should join this agreement in order to make it possible for Afghan goods to be transported to India and Indian goods to Afghanistan via Pakistan. Implementing these plans, he stated, would make it possible to revolutionise road transport in Asia. He also emphasised that India intended to help build the Iranian deep-water port of Chabahar, which will open up access for Afghanistan to the ...
... ensure a balanced policy in South Asia, Russia is likely to seek to strengthen economic cooperation with Pakistan in part by helping build gas pipelines from Iran and Turkmenistan. The construction of the IPI (Iran-Pakistan-India) and TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) pipelines can is unlikely to come to pass before the end of the forecast period or even later. Russia will probably participate in the CASA-1000 project to transfer the extra electricity from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to Afghanistan and Pakistan....
