Farangis Najibullah and Khursand Khurramov
Central Asian countries are taking steps to broaden relations with their southern neighbor, the Taliban-led Afghanistan, despite the hard-line group’s increasingly restrictive policies, particularly toward women.
Kyrgyzstan removed the Taliban from its list of terrorist organizations earlier this month, Turkmenistan resumed work with Afghanistan on a major gas-pipeline project, and Uzbekistan signed $2.5 billion worth of cooperation agreements with Kabul during the Uzbek prime minister’s high-profile visit to Afghanistan in August.
Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Jeenbek Kulubaev said on September 6 that the measure aims to “secure regional stability and further develop ongoing dialogue.”
On September 11, Turkmen and Taliban officials held a ceremony to mark the resumption of the much-delayed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas-pipeline project, which is designed to transport up to 33 billion cubic meters of natural gas from Turkmenistan to South Asia each year.
The ceremony in the Turkmen border town of Serhetabat was attended by former President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, the head of the powerful People’s Council of Turkmenistan, while the Taliban delegation was led by its prime minister, Mohammad Hassan Akhund, who is on a UN sanctions list.
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