By Khalid Hasan
The President of Turkmenistan, Saparmurat Niyazov has
requested the United Nations to support a gas-pipeline
through Afghanistan to Pakistan. Niyazov or
'Turkmenbashi' (father of the Turkmens) made the
comments at a press conference in the Turkmen capital
Ashgabat. He also highlighted the benefits and risks
of the project - 'Thanks to this project, Afghanistan
would gain 12,000 jobs, and 12 percent of its
profits...I have proposed that the United Nations
approve the plan.'
This is not the first time which a gas pipeline has
been proposed to run through Afghanistan to export
Turkmen gas. From the mid-1990s, Western companies
courted Niyazov and the Taliban to secure this route.
However, Unocal the company which was planning to lay
the pipeline pulled out of the project in 1998 and has
recently been declared bankrupt. Many analysts have
argued that the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan
was, in part to facilitate the building of this
pipeline.
Pakistan's Inter-Service-Intelligence (ISI) has been
accused of being the Taliban's patron and sponsor. By
bringing peace and relative stability to Afghanistan
through the Taliban, the ISI hoped to make Pakistan a
key player in the Central Asian region. The pipeline
would secure Pakistan's increasing need for natural
gas and also enable the landlocked region of Central
Asia to have a reliable route to the Indian Ocean and
the markets of East Asia. Turkmenistan is interested
in this deal since the pipeline bypasses both Russian
and Iranian territory. Almost of the states of the
Former Soviet Union (FSU) are involved in long-term
security diversification, in military and economic
terms. At present, most of Turkmenistan's gas is
exported via Russia. Russia, throughout the 1990s has
used this as political leverage over many of the FSU
states. Therefore one of the key objectives of the
pipeline bypassing Russian territory is aimed at
reducing Russian influence and interference in
Turkmenistan's development.
Niyazov is scheduled to meet both Hamid Karzai and
General Pervez Musharaff in Islamabad this May. It is
expected that the pipeline will be high on the agenda
of the meeting. If a deal is concluded, it will be
interesting to see which company secures the contract
for the pipeline's development.
The United States has actively promoted the concept of
'geopolitical pluralism' throughout the post-Soviet
space. One of the main tenets of this concept seeks to
promote the independence and development of the
post-Soviet states through reducing their dependence
upon Russia. The Baku-Tblisi-Ceyhan pipeline has
sought to do this, exporting Azerbaijani oil through
Turkey to Europe, bypassing Russian territory.
With the fall of the Taliban in Afghanistan and the
introduction of an ‘international security force’
(ISAF), President Niyazov has made a sharp political
move by reintroducing the pipeline issue. Especially
since international concern about the development of
economic development of Afghanistan is starting to
take shape. If the United States secures the deal to
build the Turkmen pipeline, then its reasons for
removing the Taliban from power in Afghanistan will
surely be under greater scrutiny. Claims will
undoubtedly be made that US strategic objectives are
concerned with the economic resources of Central Asia,
and that she has used the campaign against global
terrorism as a ready excuse.
From Ummahnews
______________________
Terbitan : 30 April 2002
Ke atas
Home
