Page 6 - FSUOGM Week 33 2021

FSUOGM COMMENTARY FSUOGM
Afghanistan’s neighbours assess fate of investments
CENTRAL ASIA
THE new hard reality in Afghanistan, with the country back under Taliban rule after 20 years, will prompt neighbouring nations including Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Iran to rapidly reassess the prospects of investment projects that essentially depend on Kabul’s sup- port and cooperation.
There are relatively few such projects but some of those that do exist are quite sizeable and strategic. Below, bne IntelliNews takes a look at some of the investments concerned and at whether or not they are likely to survive under the Taliban regime, a regime that, sometimes described as the world’s biggest drug cartel, won’t be in too much of a hurry to diversify away from Afghanistan’s heroin economy.
Turkmenistan
In February, a Taliban delegation paid a surprise visit to Turkmenistan to restate support for the planned Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Paki- stan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline.
Suhail Shaheen, a member of the Taliban’s Qatar-based negotiation team, told reporters in Ashgabat that his movement was offering “full support for the implementation and security of TAPI and other developmental projects in our country.”
“We are trying to contribute to prosperity of our people and development of our country by providing protection to all projects,” Shaheen added.
The fortunes of Turkmenistan’s battered economy almost entirely hinge on gas sales to
China. The other customer, Russia, buys just small amounts. Thus, TAPI is a crucial ele- ment of the Turkmens’ search for badly needed additional revenues. The Taliban have also made encouraging noises as regards proposed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (TAP) high-voltage power transmission lines and railways that would run from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan.
Nevertheless, given the huge risk factor caused by investors’ lack of trust in a fundamen- talist group like the Taliban (whose financial for- tunes are built on producing opium and heroin), running a regime that has essentially emerged out of a military coup, Turkmenistan will have its work cut out securing the financing for TAPI, TAP and other Afghanistan-dependent projects.
Portents of this difficulty were seen in June when Pakistan started intimating that it would be unwilling to agree on a pricing mechanism for TAPI gas until the project was complete. The News, an English-language Pakistani newspa- per, cited Tabish Gauhar, a special advisor to the prime minister, as saying that Islamabad would not commit to paying for gas until it had crossed safely through Afghanistan.
“In case of a halt of gas supply to Pakistan in the wake of any subversive activity in Afghani- stan,Pakistanwillnevertaketheriskatanycost,” Gauhar was quoted as having said.
Uzbekistan
Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev is the point man for those ambitious to see the landlocked
Image: AFP
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w w w . N E W S B A S E . c o m Week 33 18•August•2021