Afghanistan - The Times Of Central Asia

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Afghanistan

Afghanistan’s Regional Ties Grow as Global Reintegration Stalls

For Central Asia, Afghanistan is both a source of risk and a potential route south. Governments across the region increasingly see a more stable Afghanistan as a way to open new markets and expand economic links with South Asia. Afghanistan is a direct neighbor of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. The geography is different for Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, but their political and economic interests are no less significant. Many long-term plans for expanding Central Asia’s connections to the south depend in part on Afghanistan’s future and the role it can play in the regional economy. At the UN Security Council’s September 16, 2026, meeting on Afghanistan, Kazakhstan set out a position that may reflect a wider Central Asian view. Astana argued that engagement with Afghanistan’s current authorities should not be equated with recognition and that isolation could not offer a sustainable solution. Astana proposes moving past the current focus on humanitarian aid. In Kazakhstan’s view, the next phase of international engagement should gradually move Afghanistan from dependence on humanitarian aid toward economic self-reliance through job creation, private-sector development, the restoration of financial channels, and expanded trade and investment. The statement also calls for Afghanistan’s integration into the regional economy. Kazakhstan’s representative specifically discussed connections between Central and South Asia, Kazakh-Afghan business ties, trade houses in Herat and Kabul, and the new UN Regional Centre for the Sustainable Development Goals for Central Asia and Afghanistan in Almaty. Astana also expressed concern about restrictions affecting Afghan women and girls. Georgette Gagnon, the UN secretary-general’s deputy special representative for Afghanistan, delivered the main briefing. Five years after the Taliban’s return to power, the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) assesses that the de facto authorities face no significant armed or political threat to their control, although risks to long-term stability are accumulating and largely stem from their own policies. UNAMA therefore distinguishes between the Taliban’s control of the country and its prospects for long-term stability. UNAMA views the Doha process as the main multilateral framework for Afghanistan’s gradual reintegration into the international community. It links progress to women’s rights and inclusive governance, along with the fulfillment of counterterrorism commitments. The mission also notes that Kabul prefers bilateral relations to multilateral engagement. Russia and China focused on pragmatic engagement and economic recovery, stressing the need to avoid isolation. China also urged Kabul to step up its efforts against terrorist groups and lift restrictions preventing Afghan women employed by the UN from doing their jobs. Russia called for dialogue without pressure and for steps toward Afghanistan’s international reintegration without preconditions. Afghanistan’s economic ties with some regional partners are expanding while its political normalization at the global level remains unresolved. Kazakhstan’s position illustrates this divide. It allows for engagement without accepting the existing order as permanent or waiting for isolation to change it. Future international discussions on Afghanistan will have to address this tension.

Natural gas

Turkmenistan Advances TAPI Pipeline and Infrastructure Projects in Herat

Turkmenistan has spent years seeking new gas export routes, and in western Afghanistan that effort is taking physical form. By mid-September, 122.3 kilometers of pipe had been welded and laid along the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) route in Herat Province. Ashgabat is also pursuing two other connections with Afghanistan along the same corridor. Energy officials are discussing a 500 kV transmission line, while plans call for a railway from the Turkmen border to reach Herat and eventually extend farther south. Herat is becoming the focal point for Turkmen gas, electricity, and freight. For Ashgabat, supplying Herat could give TAPI its first functioning Afghan market without waiting for the entire pipeline to reach Pakistan and India. Afghanistan would gain energy supplies and infrastructure, as well as a chance to connect its western region more closely to regional trade. As of September 15, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Mines and Petroleum reported that 150.3 kilometers of the 153-kilometer TAPI route in Herat Province had been prepared for pipe installation. Of the 122.3 kilometers of pipe welded and laid, 71.5 kilometers had been buried. Hydrostatic testing had been completed on 33 kilometers. The ministry’s estimate of nearly 80% completion applies only to pipe-laying along this section. In May, the ministry reported that 63 kilometers of pipe had been laid. Four months later, the figure had nearly doubled. The pipeline is designed to run roughly 1,814 kilometers from Turkmenistan’s Galkynysh gas field through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Indian border. Its planned capacity is 33 billion cubic meters a year. At full capacity, the Asian Development Bank’s current project description allocates 5% of the gas to Afghanistan and 47.5% each to Pakistan and India. The pipeline has been under discussion for more than three decades. Conflict, financing shortages, security threats, and disputes over commercial terms have repeatedly delayed it. Work on Afghan territory resumed in September 2024. The latest figures from Herat make it possible, for the first time in years, to measure TAPI’s progress in kilometers of pipeline rather than diplomatic statements. For Turkmenistan, the stakes are high. The country holds the world’s fourth-largest natural gas reserves, but most of its gas exports go to China. Beijing receives around 30 billion cubic meters of Turkmen gas annually and continues to work with Ashgabat on expanding production at Galkynysh. In February, Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov said diversifying gas export routes was one of the country’s primary goals. Together, Pakistan and India would provide Turkmenistan with markets comparable in scale to its Chinese market. To reach them, however, the pipeline still has to cross most of Afghanistan and then Pakistan. Tensions between Kabul and Islamabad, along with the difficult relationship between Pakistan and India, continue to create political and transit risks for the full project. Herat offers a smaller market that could be reached sooner. A distribution network is planned in the city to supply gas to businesses, power plants, and households. In August, Turkmengaz and Afghan Gas signed a memorandum on the gasification of the province. The memorandum covers local...

CSTO

For the CSTO, Afghanistan Might Be the Last Credible Threat

The Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization is conducting its “Rubezh (Frontier) 2026” military exercises from September 12-19. Those exercises are designed with Afghanistan in mind, a country that the CSTO has been talking about frequently in 2026, and also one where militant groups pose a shared threat to its members. And even the Taliban are no longer viewed as the threat they once were. Frontier 2026 The Frontier 2026 exercises are taking place at the Koktal training ground in southeastern Kazakhstan’s Zhetysu Province. The CSTO’s Rapid Deployment Force is practicing to repel cross-border incursions in mountain and desert terrain. The exercises come this time as concerns about infiltration by militants in Afghanistan into CIS territory are increasing. Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov said on September 8 that Russia is paying special attention to strengthening Tajikistan’s border with Afghanistan. The Tajik authorities have been calling for additional aid for the country’s border forces since a series of attacks from Afghanistan in November 2025 left five Chinese workers in southern Tajikistan dead, followed by an attack in December that killed two Tajik border guards. Tajikistan has regularly asked for international help in guarding its frontier with Afghanistan since independence in 1991. But after the violence at the end of 2025, the Tajik government appealed especially to its fellow members in the CSTO for increased assistance. CSTO Secretary General Taalatbek Masadykov said at the end of August that the first shipment of weapons and equipment would be sent to Tajikistan this autumn. Raison D’être The Collective Security Treaty was signed in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, in 1992 by representatives from Armenia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. In 1993, Azerbaijan, Belarus, and Georgia joined. The purpose was simple. If any of the member states was attacked by an external enemy, that state could request aid, including military assistance, from the other members. In the early 1990s, there were potential enemies for the Treaty members in practically every direction. The Soviet Union had collapsed in late 1991. There were questions about how the former Communist Bloc countries and their new Western allies might act. The theocratic regime in Iran was a possible threat to the South Caucasus and Central Asia, and the latter region had unstable Afghanistan to worry about also. China was a concern for Central Asia and Russia. Back then, banding together made sense for the nine newly independent states that signed the treaty. When Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Uzbekistan dropped out in 1999, it appeared the Collective Security Treaty was on the brink of becoming irrelevant. After Vladimir Putin became Russia’s president, he put a new emphasis on a security bloc within the CIS, and in 2002, the remaining six treaty members signed a new charter. However, now, in 2026, the list of the CSTO’s potential external threats is greatly reduced. Far from being a security concern, China is now a leading trade partner for Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, and provides military assistance to all four countries. Iran’s relations with the West remain...

ISKP Islamic State – Khorasan

Islamic State Khorasan Province Expands Reach Beyond Afghanistan

More than a decade has passed since the formal emergence of Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP). For Central Asia, the history of this group is especially significant: the region features prominently in its propaganda and recruitment, and people from Central Asian countries have become part of transnational networks linked to ISKP. Today, ISKP must be assessed as more than an armed group operating in Afghanistan. Over the past decade, it has repeatedly lost leaders, been driven from most of its original territorial strongholds, and endured several major campaigns against it. Yet it has not disappeared. The current iteration of ISKP differs markedly from the organization that tried to establish itself in eastern Afghanistan in 2015-16. The main change is that it has learned to survive and spread its influence without controlling substantial territory. This transformation makes it especially important for Central Asia. Distance from the Afghan border and the number of districts under the group’s control are becoming less important measures of the threat. Its ability to maintain transnational ties, address audiences in local languages, and use migrant and digital networks is becoming more important. A large body of recent research, including a recently published monograph by the Usanas Foundation, makes it possible to trace this transformation. The group’s decade-long history is important for what it reveals about changes in the modern terrorist threat: loss of territory and a decline in membership do not necessarily mean an organization will disappear. ISKP did not emerge in a vacuum. Its original core was formed largely by members of existing jihadist organizations. They included former commanders of Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Taliban members, and representatives of other groups who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State’s leadership after the organization emerged in Iraq and Syria. On January 26, 2015, Islamic State officially announced the creation of its “Khorasan Province.” Eastern Afghanistan became its main territorial base. This choice was no accident. Significant Salafi communities and religious networks had long existed in the region. Their development can be traced at least to the Soviet-Afghan War of the 1980s, and by 1990, Kunar Province already had its own Salafi political-religious movement, which briefly established the Islamic Emirate of Kunar. These networks should not automatically be equated with jihadism, but the presence of an established religious milieu and long-standing tensions between some Salafis and the Taliban gave ISKP more favorable conditions for its initial recruitment and entrenchment. The initial strategy largely replicated the Islamic State model in Iraq and Syria. ISKP sought to do more than carry out terrorist attacks. It tried to establish itself on the ground, build bases and its own control structures, collect local revenue, and demonstrate an ability to impose an alternative order. It was an effort to implement a specific territorial project. That effort to establish a territorial foothold soon became the group’s main source of vulnerability. From the middle of the decade, ISKP came under pressure from several adversaries at once. The armed forces of the former Afghan government and the...

TAPI Gas Pipeline

TAPI Pipeline Moves Closer to First Gas Sales in Afghanistan

After decades of delays, the TAPI gas pipeline has moved closer than ever to actual gas sales – but first to the smallest of its intended markets. Turkmenistan is preparing to supply gas to Afghanistan’s Herat province, while the timeline for extending the pipeline to Pakistan and India remains uncertain. On August 10, state-owned Turkmengaz and Afghan Gas signed a memorandum covering the purchase of gas through TAPI. The document does not itself set a price or supply volume, but it brings closer the prospect that Afghanistan could become the first TAPI customer actually to receive gas. Afghanistan was already part of TAPI’s original customer base. Afghan Gas and Turkmengaz signed a gas sale-and-purchase agreement in 2013. What has changed is that the pipeline is now approaching a market it can physically serve. On August 27, Herat Governor Islam Jar said the local section of TAPI was expected to be commissioned within two months. Turkmenistan has not announced an equally specific date for the start of commercial gas supplies. TAPI was conceived as an approximately 1,800-kilometer pipeline running from Turkmenistan’s giant Galkynysh gas field through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Indian border. Its planned capacity is 33 billion cubic meters of gas a year. At full capacity, Pakistan and India are each allocated 14 billion cubic meters of gas a year, while Afghanistan is allocated 5 billion. But after decades of planning, the pipeline has still not reached its principal intended customers. Construction of the 153-kilometer section from the Turkmen border toward Herat began in September 2024. Earlier this year, Turkmenistan said it expected to complete the section by the end of 2026, but no timetable has been announced for extending the pipeline farther south. According to the Afghan side, 116 kilometers of pipeline had been laid by early August. The August agreement also envisages the infrastructure needed to use the gas locally. Turkmen and Afghan officials have agreed to develop infrastructure in Herat to supply gas to industrial facilities, power plants, and households. The volumes involved would be modest compared with the roughly 30 billion cubic meters of gas Turkmenistan exports to China each year. But even limited sales through TAPI would give Ashgabat another export outlet. In February, Turkmenistan's still-influential former president Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov described diversification of gas exports as one of the country’s main priorities. For TAPI itself, however, the first gas sales could matter even if the volumes are modest. Writing for The Times of Central Asia, Central Asia analyst Bruce Pannier noted that amid strained relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as between Pakistan and India, completion of the entire TAPI pipeline remains a distant prospect. He argued that supplying Herat alone could demonstrate to potential investors that the pipeline actually works. The memorandum signed on August 10 has offered little clarity on price, volumes and start dates. Afghanistan has separately proposed negotiating a long-term contract and pricing formula, while the gas distribution network in Herat still needs to be developed. The governor’s statement that the...

TCA Interviews JICA

JICA’s Sota Tosaka on Afghanistan’s Economic Ties With Uzbekistan

Uzbekistan is deepening trade and transport ties with Afghanistan despite continuing political and humanitarian concerns, drawing its southern neighbor closer to Central Asian markets. In an interview with The Times of Central Asia, Sota Tosaka, chief representative of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for Afghanistan, described that engagement as part of a practical regional approach. Uzbekistan and other Central Asian countries, he said, are seeking areas where economic cooperation can continue. Tosaka, who previously worked at JICA headquarters overseeing Central Asia and the Caucasus, has also visited Uzbekistan several times, including Termez. He said his current position gives him a different perspective on the relationship between Afghanistan and its northern neighbors. “I previously visited Termez in 2019 when I was overseeing the Central Asia and Caucasus region at JICA headquarters,” Tosaka told The Times of Central Asia. “At that time, the free trade zone aimed at facilitating business with Afghanistan did not exist yet. Returning to Termez recently, I was genuinely surprised to see how much progress has been made and how actively various cross-border initiatives are now being explored and implemented through Termez to connect Uzbekistan and Afghanistan.” Since taking charge of JICA’s Afghanistan operations, his work has focused on supporting Afghan people through international organizations. Tosaka noted that JICA’s primary focus remains on addressing the immediate needs of the Afghan population. To ensure that assistance directly reaches local communities and vulnerable groups, the agency coordinates its support through United Nations agencies and international partners. “Our priority is to deliver tangible support directly to the people of Afghanistan,” he said. “Working alongside UN partners allows us to effectively implement humanitarian activities that address daily challenges on the ground.” “Although the geopolitical environment surrounding Afghanistan has shifted significantly, Central Asian nations are actively pursuing opportunities to expand economic ties from their respective strategic viewpoints,” Tosaka continued. “Recognizing the importance of regional stability, countries like Uzbekistan are taking pragmatic steps to foster trade and commercial cooperation that serve mutual interests.” In particular, Uzbekistan’s proactive approach to encouraging business initiatives reflects a broader regional trend aimed at maintaining essential economic linkages. For Uzbekistan, the economic relationship has already become significant. Deputy Prime Minister Jamshid Khodjaev said in February that bilateral trade between Uzbekistan and Afghanistan has increased 2.5 times over the past five years, from $653 million in 2021 to $1.7 billion in 2025. The two countries have set a goal of raising annual trade to $5 billion. Tosaka noted that this economic orientation may become increasingly crucial given the diplomatic and logistical constraints Afghanistan faces on its eastern and western borders. “Complex relations with Pakistan and the geopolitical situation involving Iran present significant challenges for Afghanistan,” he explained. “Consequently, deepening economic ties with its northern neighbors becomes a vital strategic alternative. In this context, Central Asian nations serve as indispensable partners, creating mutually beneficial opportunities for sustainable regional development.” In parallel with these macro-economic trends, JICA is dedicated to strengthening grassroots economic resilience by empowering Afghan entrepreneurs, particularly women, in...