The implementation of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) transnational gas pipeline project was discussed by phone today by the Presidents of Turkmenistan and Pakistan Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov and Arif Alvi.

According to the state news Agency of Turkmenistan, construction and installation work on its Turkmen site is currently in the final stage. Most recently, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan signed a Memorandum of understanding on the selection of land plots on the Afghan part of the TAPI highway, designed to facilitate the intensification of work on the territory of the neighboring country.
In this context, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov expressed hope that with the assistance and support of his Pakistani counterpart, construction of the gas pipeline will soon begin on the territory of Pakistan.

It was stressed that the successful implementation of this major project will give a new impetus to the economic development of the region, will further link our States with the ties of good-neighborliness and cooperation, and will become an important factor of peace and stability.

The project is under construction with Dec 2015, main TAPI gas pipeline length of more than 1.8 thousand kilometers will pass from the gas field “Galkynysh” in South Turkmenistan through the Afghan cities of Herat and Kandahar, Pakistani Quetta and Multan to Fazilka in the West of India. The planned capacity of the pipeline is designed to supply 33 billion cubic meters of gas per year.

In the course of the telephone conversation, among the promising areas of interstate and regional partnership, the effective combination of efforts to develop transport and communication

infrastructure and the construction of power transmission lines was also identified. Today, Turkmenistan and Pakistan have sufficient potential to significantly increase the indicators of bilateral trade and diversify mutual supplies.

In this aspect, the expediency of conducting a thorough joint analysis of the General state of trade and economic relations and the dynamics of trade turnover was noted. The Turkmen-Pakistani Intergovernmental Commission should be more active here, President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov said, offering to organize its next meeting in an online format in the near future.

The interlocutors also spoke in favor of expanding the traditional humanitarian cooperation between the two countries, whose peoples are United by long-standing spiritual and cultural ties, which are now a solid basis for further deepening interstate cooperation. In this regard, there are good opportunities to activate systemic contacts in the field of culture and art, scientific, educational and medical spheres.