Turkmenistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan will analyse on April 12-13 Turkmenistan’s certification report on the gas reserves of Daulatabad gas field which will supply gas through the proposed $2.5 billion Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan gas pipeline.
It has been learnt that the meeting was given greater significance in light of public comments by US Secretary of State Dr Condoleeza Rice during her visit to this region when she favoured the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan gas pipeline against the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline. “Within one week of her comments the TAP ministerial meeting was convened,” sources observed.
The steering committee meeting could not take place before because Turkmenistan could not obtain the verification certificate. Now Turkmenistan has shown that the verification of gas reverses has been carried out by a US based firm.
Marshuk Ali Shah, country director of the Asian Development Bank (ADB), said India had not responded positively to an invitation by the three countries to attend the upcoming steering committee meeting. He said the economic viability of the project would increase if India, which is an energy starved country, was willing to become part of the TAP project.
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