Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Kabul (BNA)  Addressing the economic committee meeting, President Karzai said that the TAPI project and regional cooperation is of utmost importance and emphasized that Afghanistan will render all out cooperation with Turkmenistan towards implementation of the project.  At the meeting minister of mines Waheedullah Shahrani presented a report on his recent visit to Turkmenistan where issues for finalization of the prices of gas for the TAPI project were discussed.  Shahrani said that the Afghan delegation during its visit to Turkmenistan had meetings with that country’s higher authorities and asked for cooperation of that country in different spheres in Afghanistan and they assured of appropriate price its gas.  He stressed that the delegation had informed the Turkmenistan side on the progress of the Afghanistan side progress in its talks with the Pakistani and Indian authorities on transport fees and the deputy minister of petroleum and mines of Pakistan Ejaz Chudari was quoted by some media sources as if Afghanistan has left the TAPI project.  The Pakistani side rejected these allegations and emphasized on the strategic values of this project and said that Afghanistan is willingly supporting this project.  He also called his meeting with the Turkmenistan President Qurban Quli Berdi as very valuable and said that the president of Turkmenistan assured of his country’s cooperation in different spheres and promised sell of gas to Afghanistan in appropriate price for a period of 20 years and agreed on sale of 500 million cubic of gas to Afghanistan.