25 December 2024

The Taliban’s Canal

Andrew C. Kuchins, Elvira Aidarkhanova, Najibullah Sadid & Zekria Barakzai

The Qoshtepa Canal, currently under construction in Afghanistan on the Amu Darya River, will dramatically affect the availability of water for irrigation and drinking in one of the world’s most water-scarce regions—Central Asia. In addition to their already existing water challenges, the Amu Darya River basin and Central Asia are experiencing a far more rapid rate of climate change than the global average.

The interim authorities of Afghanistan face major financial, technical, and diplomatic challenges to complete the canal in an efficient, sustainable, and peaceful manner. The region cannot afford for this canal to be as poorly designed and constructed as Soviet canals on the Amu Darya, which, decades after their construction, continue to impinge on regional water security. The Soviet historical legacy also excludes Afghanistan from essential water-sharing agreements.

Six months after regaining control of Afghanistan, in March 2022, the interim authorities of Afghanistan reinitiated the Qoshtepa Canal project on the Amu Darya River, also known as the “Nile of Central Asia.” Initial plans for the canal to be built with Soviet assistance date back to the 1970s. This did not happen. In 2018, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) commissioned a feasibility study for the project, and the Ghani government built the first seven kilometers of the canal before being thrown out of power in August 2021 by the Taliban, a group now referred to in official parlance as the “interim authorities of Afghanistan.”

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