Page 66 - bneMagazine March 2023 oil discount

66 I Eurasia bne March 2023
Taliban Acting Defence Minister Muhammad Yaqoob has twice demanded Uzbekistan hand over warplanes and helicopters it seized from Afghan government troops who fled Afghanistan while the militants were marching on Kabul. / Afghan state TV, screengrab.
Uzbekistan’s relations with Taliban start to fray
On January 2, Tashkent and Kabul prolonged the Uzbek electricity supply agreement to cover 2023, but on January 13, Uzbekistan halted electricity exports to Afghanistan, citing technical prob- lems. By January 22, with supplies still suspended and temperatures around Central Asia plunging, the Taliban seemed to be losing patience.
Taliban Acting Foreign Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi said that day: “Uzbekistan cut off electricity supplies; now people are facing problems. Neighbours and friends should help each other in dif- ficult moments.”
Supplies were restored on January 24, but remaining tensions over the power outage were clear. Then on February
1, Uzbekistan’s state railway company Uzbekiston Temir Yollari announced a temporary suspension of Uzbekistan- Afghanistan railway traffic “[d]ue to the fact that the Afghanistan Railroad Authority is not able to implement agreed measures in time...”
The railway line is important for
both countries. It connects to railway lines from China (the first China to Afghanistan goods train arrived in 2016) and to other Central Asian rail routes, linking through to Russia.
Some disagreements appeared to have been rumbling since early December.
Afghanistan’s Tolo News reported on December 5 that Afghanistan Railway Authority acting chief Bakht Rahman Sharafat said Afghanistan had signed a contract with Kazakh company Mansour Fatih on maintaining the railway from the Uzbek border to the northern Afghan city Mazar-i-Sharif.
The Dustlik Bridge connecting Uzbekistan and Afghanistan was completed in 1982. It is a vehicle and railway bridge, with train tracks laid down the middle. The railway route was meant to bring supplies to Soviet troops in Afghanistan. But it ended just a few kilometres inside the country.
Funding from international organisa- tions saw it extended to Mazar-i-Sharif, 75 kilometres from the Uzbek border.
Bruce Pannier
Of the five Central Asian countries, Uzbekistan has the best relationship with the Taliban. Recent events, however, demonstrate the Uzbeks’ difficulties in dealing with the current rulers of Afghanistan.
Uzbek authorities and the Taliban leadership quickly came to a business arrangement after the militant group returned to power in August 2021 and pledged that Afghan territory would never be used to launch an attack on a neighbouring country.
Uzbekistan had prepared for the pos- sibility of the Taliban seizing control
of Afghanistan. In March 2019, then- Uzbek foreign minister Abdulaziz Kamilov held talks in Doha with Taliban representatives. The following August, a Taliban delegation visited Uzbekistan.
Uzbek and Taliban officials continued
to meet in the months before foreign forces concluded their Afghanistan exit.
When the Taliban entered Kabul on August 15, 2021, the Uzbek embassy
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remained open. While the crossings along the 144-kilometre (89-mile) Uzbek-Afghan border – including the key Dustlik (Friendship) Bridge – closed, bridge traffic resumed within weeks.
The secular Uzbek government – the
top officials of which grew up when Uzbekistan was part of the Soviet
Union – have little in common with the Taliban. In fact, during the Taliban’s late 1990s reign in Afghanistan, the Uzbek government provided aid to anti-Taliban forces. But infrastructure projects
built during the 20 years when foreign forces propped up the Hamid Karzai and Ashraf Ghani governments were lucrative for Uzbekistan and became indispensable for Afghanistan.
Asian Development Bank (ADB) helped fund the construction of power transmission lines between Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. Uzbekistan now accounts for 60% of Afghanistan’s electricity imports. Some unfinished projects from years back, if completed, could significantly boost that figure.