Our People > Bruce Pannier

Bruce Pannier

Bruce Pannier is a Central Asia Fellow in the Eurasia Program at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, the advisory board at the Caspian Policy Center, and a longtime journalist and correspondent covering Central Asia. For a decade, he appeared regularly on the Majlis podcast for RFE/RL, and now broadcasts his Spotlight on Central Asia podcast in partnership with The Times of Central Asia.

Articles

Water Shortages

Kazakhstan Warns of Severe Water Shortages as Syr Darya Levels Drop

Kazakhstan’s Minister of Water Resources and Irrigation, Nurzhan Nurzhigitov, gave a sober warning to the country on January 13 that this year there could be significantly less water for agriculture in the southern parts of the country. Nurzhigitov said that as of January 12, there was 1.9 billion cubic meters (bcm) less water in the reservoirs of southern Kazakhstan than on that date in 2025. The Importance of the Syr-Darya These areas are part of the Syr Darya Basin. The Syr Darya is one of Central Asia’s two large rivers, the other being the Amu Darya to the south, which runs along the Central Asia-Afghan border. Equally alarming for Kazakhstan, Nurzhigitov noted that in the mountains of upstream neighboring countries, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, where the Syr Darya originates, officials are also reporting low levels in reservoirs. According to the Kazakh Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation, the reservoirs in those two countries are a combined 3.2 bcm lower than last year at this time. Kyrgyzstan’s Energy Minister Taalaybek Ibrayev said in November 2025 that the water level in the massive Toktogul reservoir was less than 11 bcm, nearly 2 bcm lower than in November 2024, and only at about 60% of its 19.5 bcm capacity. Water from the reservoir is released into the Naryn River, which eventually merges with the Syr Darya in Uzbekistan, and flows on further into Kazakhstan. The Toktogul hydropower plant (HPP) depends on that water to supply some 40% of Kyrgyzstan’s domestically-produced electricity, and Ibrayev called on Kyrgyzstan’s citizens to conserve electricity and help the water in Toktogul accumulate before the 2026 agriculture season. Tajikistan’s state power company, Barqi Tojik, also called in November for the country’s citizens to save electricity as the water level at the Nurek HPP’s reservoir was low. The Nurek reservoir uses water from the Vakhsh River that does not flow into the Syr Darya, but the water shortage problems at Nurek are similar throughout Tajikistan, including tributaries that do flow into the Syr Darya. Conservation and New Wells In Kazakhstan, Nurzhigitov said inspections and repairs of irrigation canals were currently underway. He also mentioned that in December, Deputy Prime Minister Kanat Bozumbayev had ordered officials in the Kyzylorda, Turkestan, and Zhambyl provinces to hold meetings with farmers and herders to discuss water conservation. There were also talks with farmers about planting crops that required less water. Water limits would be announced in February, Nurzhigitov said, and in March the Agriculture Ministry would decide how much land to sow for this year’s crops based on expected water supplies during the spring-summer period. Nurzhigitov added that work was being done to increase the use of underground water, which he claimed could amount to some 15.7 bcm of extra water for Kazakhstan annually. Currently, Nurzhigitov said, only some 7-10% of this underground water is being used. Bleak Forecast Kazakhstan gathered a record harvest in 2025, some 27.1 million tons of grain, despite planting less wheat. Given the reduction in precipitation in Central Asia in...

6 months ago

Tajik-Afghan Border

Deadly Clashes and Gold Mines Fuel Tensions on the Tajik-Afghan Border

Along a short strip of the Tajik-Afghan border, there has been a lot of activity in recent months, including the most serious incidents of cross-border violence in decades. Most of this activity has involved Tajikistan’s Shamsiddin Shohin district, a sparsely inhabited area where the population ekes out a living farming and herding in the foothills of the Pamir Mountains. Why the situation changed so suddenly is not entirely clear, but it is clear that the district is now the hot spot along the Tajik-Afghan frontier. A Dubious Post-Independence Reputation The Shamsiddin Shohin district is in Tajikistan’s southwestern Khatlon region. The district is located near the place where Afghan territory starts to make its northern-most protrusion. The elevation across most of the district is between 1,500-2,000 meters. The district is about 2,300 square kilometers and has a population of some 60,000. Shuroobad, population roughly 11,000, is the district capital, and the entire district was once called Shuroobad. It was renamed Shamsiddin Shohin in 2016 to honor the Tajik poet and satirist of the late 19th century, who was born in the area. Tajikistan and Afghanistan are divided by the Pyanj River, which further downstream merges with other rivers to become the Amu Darya, known to the Greeks as the Oxus, one of Central Asia’s two great rivers. [caption id="attachment_41640" align="aligncenter" width="2560"] The road to Shuroobad; image: TCA, Stephen M. Bland[/caption] The Tajik-Afghan frontier is about 1,360 kilometers. Some 70 kilometers is the southern border of the Shamsiddin Shohin district, but it is the first area, traveling downstream, where the current of the Pyanj River slows significantly. In the first years after the Bolshevik Revolution broke out, many Tajiks fled through what is now the Shamsiddin Shohin district into Afghanistan. Some seventy years later, thousands of Tajiks again fled through the district into Afghanistan when the newly independent state of Tajikistan was engulfed by civil war. The United Tajik Opposition (UTO), the group fighting against the Tajik government during the 1992-1997 civil war, made frequent use of the Shamsiddin Shohin area to bring weapons from Afghanistan. UTO fighters had safe havens in Afghanistan, and they often made their way through this district, retreating south of the border and returning via the district once they were rested and resupplied. There are only a few roads in the Shamsiddin Shohi district. The European Union funded the construction of the Friendship Bridge, which was completed in 2017, and connects the district to Afghanistan. It has often been closed by the Tajik authorities due to security concerns emanating from the Afghan side of the border. Anyone crossing illegally from Afghanistan into the Shamsiddin Shohin district could easily hide in the rugged hills and abundance of caves in the area, making it ideal for smugglers and other intruders. Aside from a few small villages along the banks, there are no settlements for 20 to 30 kilometers north of the river. Border posts were built during the time Tajikistan was a Soviet republic. Russian border guards remained in...

6 months ago

Energy deficit

Alisher Sultanov Leaves Office After a Decade of Declining Gas Production in Uzbekistan

Alisher Sultanov was relieved of his post as presidential representative on energy security on December 16, ending some ten years of dubious performance as one of Uzbekistan’s top energy officials. Under Sultanov’s watch as head of the state oil and gas company and then as a top official in Uzbekistan’s Energy Ministry, the country’s oil and gas production decreased, and Uzbekistan went from being a gas exporter to an importer. A Career in the Gas and Oil Sector Sultanov started working in Uzbekistan’s energy sector in the mid-1990s and gradually made his way through the ranks at the state oil and gas company Uzbekneftegaz. In 2015, Sultanov became Uzbekneftegaz’s chairman, serving in that position until 2018. In 2017, Sultanov was appointed Deputy Prime Minister in charge of the fuel, energy, and industrial sector, and in February 2019, he was named Energy Minister. He stepped down as Energy Minister in April 2022, officially for health reasons, but by 2023 was back as presidential advisor on oil and gas, chemical, and energy matters, though that title was changed in July 2025 to the president’s representative on energy security. Stagnation and Decline Uzbekistan does not have large oil reserves. BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy has continually put Uzbekistan’s oil reserves at somewhere around 600-620 million barrels. Uzbekistan does have significant natural gas reserves of at least some 1.1 trillion cubic meters, however, according to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy. The country has been working with international partners to explore for new deposits, particularly in areas of the recently dried out Aral Sea. In 2011, Uzbekistan’s average oil production was some 80,000 barrels per day (bpd), and gas production for that year was some 56.6 billion cubic meters (bcm). Uzbekistan was still sourcing from many fields that had been producing since Uzbekistan was a Soviet republic, and it was not surprising that yields from these depleted fields started decreasing after 2011. Sultanov became head of Uzbekneftegaz in August 2015, and that year, oil production had already dropped to some 60,000 bpd and gas to some 53.6 bcm. Both fluctuated only a little over the next three years, ending 2018 at an average of 64,000 bpd and 58.3 bcm. The 2018 figure for gas was the peak production year of the 2011-2020 period, though it fell well short of the 66 bcm Uzbekneftegaz was predicting for 2018. After Sultanov was named Energy Minister in 2019, the figure for gas production fell significantly. In 2019, gas production was 57.5 bcm, but in 2020, only 47.1 bcm, though oil output held steady at 67,000 bpd and 61,000 bpd, respectively. Gas production increased slightly in 2021 to 50.9 bcm, but then dropped to 48.9 bcm in 2022. The decrease continued after Sultanov stepped down as Energy Minister in April 2022, plummeting to 44.2 bcm in 2023 and 42.2 bcm in 2024. With a rapidly growing population and expanding industrial sector, Uzbekistan’s domestic gas consumption was sharply increasing, rising from 43.6 bcm in 2020 to 54.6...

7 months ago

Neutrality

Turkmenistan Marks 30 Years of Neutrality

On December 12, 2025, Turkmenistan marks the 30th anniversary of a UN decision granting Turkmenistan the status of a neutral country. Defining what “permanent neutrality” means for Turkmenistan is impossible, as it is a flexible term used to justify a range of policies, both domestic and foreign. This vague special status has not provided many benefits, but has helped Turkmenistan’s leadership isolate the country and create one of the most bizarre and repressive forms of government in the world today. Last Item on the Day’s Agenda On Tuesday, December 12, 1995, the UN General Assembly’s (UNGA) 90th plenary meeting reconvened at 15:20 to consider items 57 to 81 on its agenda. Item 81 was the draft resolution on “permanent neutrality of Turkmenistan.” The UNGA president at that time, Freitas do Amaral, noted to the Assembly that the draft resolution “was adopted by the First Committee without a vote,” and asked if the Assembly wished “to do likewise.” The Assembly did, and after a few brief remarks about the next Assembly meeting on December 14, the session ended at 18:05. That is how the UN officially granted Turkmenistan the status of neutrality. A Great Event The passing of the resolution on Turkmenistan’s neutrality status might have been a case of going through the motions at the UN, but it was a huge event in Turkmenistan. Turkmenistan’s first president, Saparmurat Niyazov, had been campaigning internationally for his country to have “positive” neutrality status since 1992. After this was accomplished, Niyazov often proclaimed this special UN recognition as a great achievement for the country and for himself personally. [caption id="attachment_40725" align="aligncenter" width="2560"] Ashgabat’s Independence Square, previously known as Neutrality Square and originally as Karl Marx Square; image: TCA, Stephen M. Bland[/caption] December 12 was quickly announced as a national holiday. On the first anniversary of the UN decision in 1996, the former Karl Marx Square in Ashgabat was renamed “Neutrality Square.” Shortly after, an olive branch motif was added to Turkmenistan’s national flag, symbolizing the country’s neutral status. In 1998, on the third anniversary of UN-recognized neutrality, the 75-meter-high Arch of Neutrality was unveiled in Ashgabat. A 12-meter gold statue of Niyazov that rotated to face the direction of the sun crowned the structure. Niyazov died in December 2006, and in 2010, the Arch of Neutrality was moved from the city center to the outskirts of the Turkmen capital and unveiled again on December 12, 2011. It has been undergoing renovation and will be unveiled yet again on the 30th anniversary of neutrality. [caption id="attachment_40726" align="aligncenter" width="2099"] Former-President Niyazov's likeness atop the Arch of Neutrality; image: TCA, Stephen M. Bland[/caption] In 2002, Niyazov pushed through a law changing the names of the months of the year and days of the week. December became “Bitaraplyk,” the Turkmen word for neutrality, and continued to officially be called that until 2008, when Niyazov’s successor finally revoked the changes and restored the traditional names. That successor, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, embraced the special permanent neutrality status and, in...

7 months ago

Kyrgyzstan Elections

Kyrgyzstan Election Delivers Wins for Women and the President’s Allies

Kyrgyzstan held snap parliamentary elections on November 30 that seem not to have elicited widespread enthusiasm among the electorate. Not long ago, Kyrgyzstan had the most vibrant political culture in Central Asia. Campaigning for parliamentary elections was a lively period that was impossible not to notice. Parties and candidates were in the news constantly in the weeks before the elections. There were campaign posters and signs, and public events with concerts organized by parties or candidates all around the country. The rapid pace of these latest elections, in which candidates had only 20 days to campaign, might have contributed to voter confusion and apathy on election day, but the elections do seem to have come off without any major controversy. In a country that has had three revolutions in the last 20 years, two of them directly connected to parliamentary elections, a quiet election day is a victory of sorts. Election Day Polls opened at 8:00 local time, and several hours after they closed at 20:00, Kyrgyzstan’s Central Election Commission reported that 36.9% of eligible voters had cast ballots. The last few elections in Kyrgyzstan have seen turnouts of less than 40%. This time, the Kyrgyz authorities were hoping for a significant increase in participation to validate the new system for parliamentary elections approved earlier this year. However, the turnout of 36.9% was only slightly better than the 34.61% of voters who took part in the November 2021 parliamentary elections. As many as 500,000 Kyrgyz citizens are working or living outside Kyrgyzstan, and only just over 26,000 showed up at any of the 100 polling stations in 34 countries. Five of Kyrgyzstan’s last six parliamentary elections were decided based on party lists. The last parliamentary elections were conducted under a split system, whereby 54 of the 90 seats in parliament were selected via party lists, and the other 36 seats in single-mandate districts. This time, all 90 seats were chosen under a majoritarian system, with a twist. The country was divided up into 30 electoral districts, each of which selected three deputies. Kyrgyzstan had a requirement that at least 30% of the seats in parliament should go to women, but that quota has not been observed in recent elections. In the November 30 elections, at least one woman had to be among the three candidates who secured seats in parliament, though up to two women could win in a district (at least one of the winners was required to be a man). Election results confirmed that one woman won a seat in every district, but only one. There were no instances where two women took seats in a district. Also, according to the preliminary election results, all the women who won came in third place in their districts, with one exception. In District 23, veteran MP Elvira Surabaldiyeva took the most votes. Results posted by AKI Press showed that without the requirement of one female deputy per district, only seven women would have become deputies. Name recognition was bound to...

7 months ago

Oil and Gas

KMG Pushes Back on Reports of European Asset Sale Amid Romania Refinery Losses

KazMunaiGaz (KMG) says it has no concrete plans to sell any of its European assets, though pressure is building to at least sell off some of the Kazakh company’s shares in oil refineries in Romania. Reports on November 21 said KMG was looking to privatize up to 50% of its shares in its subsidiary KMG International’s (KMGI) European operations in Europe. The reports were based on a list of recommendations from Kazakhstan’s Agency for the Protection and Development of Competition (APDC), which proposed, as part of the 2026-2027 strategy, that KMGI should have a two-stage tender to sell up to 50% of its stakes. On November 26, KMG denied making any decisions about KMGI businesses in Europe, adding that the APDC’s list of recommendations “includes assets from different sectors, but this in itself does not automatically trigger a sale.” Rompetrol KMGI has 28 companies operating in seven countries, four of them European, but the focus of reports was on the two oil refineries KMGI owns in Romania. KMGI purchased 75% of the shares in the Romanian oil company Rompetrol in 2007, and in 2009 bought the remaining 25% of shares in the company. That sale included the Petromidia oil refinery, with a capacity of some five million tons annually, and the smaller Vega refinery, with a capacity of some 350,000 tons that Rompetrol owns. KMGI also took ownership of the oil terminal near Constanta on the Black Sea coast, some 20 kilometers from the Petromidia refinery. The terminal imports mainly Kazakh oil. KMGI invested billions of dollars in upgrades and modernization of the refineries and the terminal, and finally, in 2017, operations of subsidiary Rompetrol Rafinare (54.63% KMGI and 44.7% Romanian state through the energy Ministry) showed a profit - $80 million. By 2022, profits had slightly increased to $90.3 million, but in December that year, the Romanian authorities changed tax regulations, and in 2023, Rompetrol Rafinare registered a net loss of some $270.5 million, and in 2024, a loss of $78 million. In the first six months of 2025, the company lost $53 million and paid some $771 million in taxes to the Romanian government. Rompetrol Rafinare has complained to the Romanian government that the tax burden is preventing the company from investing in new projects and has brought a legal challenge to the solidarity tax in court. In such a situation, it seems unlikely KMG would easily find a party interested in buying up to 50% of KMGI’s Romanian operation, unless the price was very low. Opponents of the proposed arrangement point to the $7 billion in investment KMG has made over nearly 20 years into upgrading the Romanian refineries as a reason to be patient for a while longer. KMGI KMG has subsidiaries operating in Switzerland, Bulgaria, Turkey, Moldova, and Georgia, as well as in Romania and Kazakhstan. At the start of 2025, there were reports that KMG was considering the acquisition of an oil refinery in Bulgaria from Russia’s LUKoil, so it appeared the Kazakh company...

7 months ago

Kyrgyzstan Elections

Kyrgyzstan Elections 2025: Short Campaign, High Stakes

Campaigning for seats in Kyrgyzstan’s upcoming parliamentary elections is underway, and it is already shaping up to be a race unlike anything seen before in Kyrgyzstan. The 467 candidates competing for the 90 seats in parliament have only 20 days to make their cases to voters in their districts. Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov’s government has vowed to keep these elections clean and fair, and threatened severe punishment for those who attempt to cheat in any way. Uneven Electoral Landscape The country is divided into 30 voting districts, and in each district, the three candidates who receive the most votes will win seats. The level of competition varies, depending on the district. Electoral district 11, which is Manas city (formerly Jalal-Abad), has 155,023 eligible voters. Only five candidates are running in the district, three of whom are women. According to new election rules, a woman (or a man) must win at least one of the three seats available in each district. Name recognition is always important, and especially so in elections with many newcomers seeking seats in parliament. One of the candidates in District 11 is Shairbek Tashiyev, the brother of the current head of the State Committee for National Security (GKNB), Kamchybek Tashiyev. He is almost certain to win one of the seats. In electoral district 19 in Kyrgyzstan’s northern Chuy Province, with 138,373 eligible voters, there are 25 candidates competing. The two districts with the largest number of voters, district 15 in the Aksy area of western Kyrgyzstan with 160,218 voters, and district 28 in the Zhety-Oguz area of eastern Kyrgyzstan with 160,181 voters, have, respectively, 15 candidates and 17 candidates. In the districts where there are 15 or more candidates, the three winners might only receive around 10,000 votes, or even less. The candidates are out meeting with voters, but many are relying on social networks to promote their image and spread their message. Domestic television stations, ElTR and UTRK, are airing candidate debates that “will be distributed regionally, depending on the candidates' electoral districts.” Not Running Eleven of the current 90 deputies in parliament have opted not to run for reelection. Among them are Iskhak Masaliyev - currently in the Butun (United) Kyrgyzstan Party but previously the long-time head of Kyrgyzstan’s Communist Party - the son of Absamat Masaliyev, who was first secretary of the Communist Party of the “Kirghizia” Soviet Socialist Republic from 1985 until independence in August 1991. Another current member of parliament who is not running is Jalolidin Nurbayev, whose attempt to register was rejected due to two criminal cases having previously been opened against him, one in 2006, the other in 2021.” A new election rule prohibits people whose cases were “terminated on non-rehabilitating grounds” from being eligible to hold public office. Effectively, this means that any case against them has been closed without declaring the person innocent, but without restoring their reputation, even though they are no longer being prosecuted. Members of organized criminal groups and their family members have won seats...

8 months ago

Kyrgyzstan Elections

Kyrgyzstan Election 2025: New Rules, New Map, Same High Stakes

Kyrgyzstan is conducting snap parliamentary elections on November 30. The deadline for would-be candidates to hand in their forms was October 30. Nearly 600 prospective contenders have submitted registration forms to run for the 90 seats in parliament. The Central Election Commission (CEC) now has until November to process candidates’ applications to ensure they meet all the requirements to participate in the upcoming poll. Those who qualify will then have 18 days to convince voters in their districts to cast their ballots for them. The Basics These will be the ninth parliamentary elections held in Kyrgyzstan since the country became independent in late 1991. The reason officials gave for moving elections forward from November 2026 is that the next presidential election is scheduled for January 2027. However, in June 2025, amendments to the electoral system came into effect that changed the voting system and redivided electoral districts, opening the way to hold early elections. Parliament voted to dissolve itself in late September, and shortly after, the date of the forthcoming election was announced. To be eligible to run for a seat in parliament, a Kyrgyz citizen must be at least 25 years old, have a higher education, and have lived continuously in Kyrgyzstan for the last five years. Anyone with a criminal record is barred from participating. In Kyrgyzstan’s parliamentary elections in the 1990s and early 2000s, some prominent opposition figures were convicted of what appeared to be politically motivated charges and imprisoned to prevent them from taking part in elections. This happened to so many opposition politicians that after Kyrgyzstan’s first revolution, the Tulip Revolution of March 2005, a rule was introduced that allowed people with previous convictions to run for office. Now, an exception is made only for those whose convictions were later overturned. What’s New? These elections will be decided through single-mandate voting. That is not new. It was the way Kyrgyzstan’s parliamentary elections were conducted until 2007. The constitutional referendum of October 2007 changed the electoral system and introduced voting by party-list. Then-President Kurmanbek Baliyev formed the Ak-Jol party immediately after the referendum, and the party went on to win more than 60% of seats in parliament in the elections in December 2007. Bakiyev’s attempts to concentrate power into his hands eventually backfired and played a role in his ouster in the revolution of April 2010. Elections continued to be conducted by party list in 2010, 2015, and 2020. However, the elections of 2020 were plagued by allegations of rigging and vote-buying during the campaign, and when two pro-government parties won the majority of seats, it sparked another revolution that saw current President Sadyr Japarov come to power. The deputies elected in 2015 remained in their posts for more than another year. The last parliamentary elections in November 2021 were held using a mixed system, whereby 36 seats were decided by single-mandate voting, and 54 by party lists. President Japarov signed amendments to the election laws in June 2025, one of which was to decide the...

8 months ago

Border Incident

Tajikistan and the Taliban – Talking and Fighting

Peaceful coexistence is turning out to be complicated for Tajikistan and the Taliban government in Afghanistan. The Tajik government has viewed the Taliban as a threat since the militant group appeared in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s. But now that modest efforts are underway to establish some sort of amicable ties, there has been an uptick of violence directly involving the two sides along the Tajik-Afghan border. Let’s Keep This Between Us Tajikistan is the lone government in Central Asia that remained hostile to the Taliban after the latter returned to power in Afghanistan in August 2021. In the weeks that followed, the Taliban again exerted control over Afghanistan, and the Tajik government and the Taliban sent reinforcements to their common border. Russia and Pakistan had to intervene to ease tensions. The other Central Asian states, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, have all established a business relationship with the Taliban government since the Taliban again seized control, but Tajikistan has remained aloof. Which is why the visit of Muhammad Yusuf Vafo, the governor of Afghanistan’s northern province of Balkh, to the Tajik capital Dushanbe on October 23 came as such a surprise. The Tajik government did not say anything about Vafo’s trip. The independent Tajik news agency Asia-Plus cited Afghan media as reporting on the visit, during which Vafo met with the head of Tajikistan’s National Security Committee (GKNB), Saimumin Yatimov. Vafo and Yatimov reportedly discussed ways to improve ties in a variety of spheres and pledged not to let any “hostile elements” use their territory to plot or carry out attacks on the country. An estimated several hundred Jamaat Ansarullah militants of Tajik origin continue to operate in Afghanistan. The group allied with the Taliban during the last years foreign forces were in Afghanistan, propping up the government of Ashraf Ghani, and stayed in Afghanistan after the Ghani government fell. Jamaat Ansarullah fighters were among the reinforcements the Taliban sent to the Tajik border during the weeks of tension in late 2021. There were reports soon after the Taliban returned to power that Tajikistan was aiding the National Resistance Front (NRF), a mainly ethnic Tajik group of former government soldiers who continue to wage a guerrilla campaign against the Taliban. NRF leader Ahmad Masoud, the son of the legendary Afghan field commander and ethnic Tajik, Ahmad Shah Masoud, has been in Dushanbe several times since August 2021, and there was a report that the NRF opened an office in Dushanbe in October that year. Shortly after Vafo’s visit to Dushanbe, Taliban sources in Balkh Province told the Pakistani-based Khorasan Diary website that Tajik authorities had banned the NRF, but the Tajik authorities stated that no such decision was made. Yatimov’s meeting with Vafo was not the first time the Tajik GKNB chief had met with Taliban representatives. In September 2024, Yatimov went to Kabul to hold security talks with Taliban officials, though the Tajik authorities never confirmed that meeting. Both parties are concerned about militants from the Islamic State of...

8 months ago

TAPI

Is TAPI Just ‘TA’ for Now?

The idea for the 1,800-kilometer Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) natural gas pipeline project has been around for 30 years. There has not been much progress in building the pipeline during those decades. The chances of seeing TAPI realized seem far away at the moment, considering Pakistan and India were involved in fighting in May of this year, and in October, there were battles along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. However, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan are still interested in TAPI, and top officials from those two countries just met along the border to inaugurate a new section of the pipeline, and it looks like, for now, these two countries are enough. Another Ceremony Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov, the chairman of Turkmenistan’s Halk Maslahaty (People’s Council), went to the Turkmen-Afghan border on October 20 to meet with Afghanistan’s Deputy Prime Minister for Economic Affairs, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, for an event inaugurating a new section of TAPI. The ceremony for the Serhetabat-Herat section of TAPI took place just inside Afghanistan, not far from where top officials from the four countries involved, including Berdimuhamedov, gathered in February 2018 to launch construction of the Afghan section of TAPI. Berdimuhamedov made his only previous visit to Afghanistan during that ceremony, when he, the Afghan president, Pakistani prime minister, and Indian minister for state and external affairs, briefly flew to Herat to continue celebrations marking the launch. The location of the October 20 inauguration was also not far from the Islim Chesme border crossing, where Berdimuhamedov met with Afghan officials in September 2024 to again launch construction of the Afghan section of TAPI. Baradar and Berdimuhamedov spoke about the project’s importance in fostering greater regional cooperation, the economic benefits of which include creating jobs and providing energy to areas that greatly need it. Similar remarks were made by Berdimuhamedov and others at previous TAPI launches. Work did finally start after the 2024 launch. Afghanistan’s Tolo News reported that according to the country’s Ministry of Mines and Petroleum, 14 kilometers of the pipe have been laid, and 70 more kilometers of the route are set for pipeline installation. Turkmen state media always refers to Berdimuhamedov as “Arkadag,” which means “protector” in the Turkmen language. According to Turkmen state media, the Serhetabat-Herat section of the pipeline is called “Arkadagyn Ak Yoly,” or “Arkadag’s White Road.” Tolo News also reported that, “Recently, a large quantity of gas transmission pipes was imported from Turkmenistan into Afghanistan.“ It appears the Serhetabat-Herat section of TAPI is making progress, but it could be years before the pipeline goes any farther. A More Modest Goal For nearly the entire history of the TAPI project, the major obstacle to actually building the pipeline was the security problem inside Afghanistan. That problem is not over, but it is significantly reduced now that the Taliban are again imposing brutal control over the country. Military conflicts in recent months between Pakistan and both the other partners in the TAPI project shine a spotlight on another problem that has always raised questions about the viability of...

8 months ago

Previous 1 2 3 4 5 … 9 Next