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US envoy pushes for Turkmenistan-Pakistan gas pipeline
By Anton Lomov
AFP
ASHGABAT
Petroleumworld.com 08 16 06
Washington is pushing for a new gas pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and "strongly opposes" a rival pipeline from Iran, US diplomat Steven Mann said Tuesday after meeting with Turkman President Saparmurat Niyazov.
Niyazov and Mann met for two hours Monday to discuss a variety of possible gas pipeline projects from the gas-rich Central Asian state, including pipelines to China and across the Caspian Sea, as well as through Afghanistan to energy-hungry Pakistan and India, Mann said.
"The demand is there, but the next step is to look for private-sector partners to develop this line," said Mann, who is the US State Department's principal deputy assistant secretary for South and Central Asian affairs.
Niyazov, a mercurial politician who has been president since Turkmenistan's independence in 1991, said after his meeting with Mann that the country supported "the policy of creating a diverse pipeline system," the Turkmen government news agency reported late Monday.
During the mid-1990s, the United States pushed for a gas pipeline to be built across the Caspian Sea from Turkmenistan to Western markets, but Niyazov eventually backed out of the project, which was opposed by Moscow.
The project to build a pipeline from Turkmenistan to Pakistan came a step closer to realization recently with completion of a feasibility study sponsored by the Asian Development Bank, but remains in doubt due to ongoing instability along its route, particularly in Afghanistan.
Aside from security issues, building a pipeline through Afghanistan's mountains would be hugely expensive and technically difficult, probably requiring government subsidies, said Chris Weafer, an analyst at Russia's Alfa Bank.
Mann acknowledged that the route posed commercial difficulties, but insisted that "governments do not build successful pipelines ... These pipelines must be attractive to the private sector."
The US also has strategic interests in such a pipeline, Weafer said, including undermining the potential profitability of a pipeline Russian state monopoly Gazprom plans to build from Iran to Pakistan.
Mann on Tuesday said Washington opposed a pipeline from Iran, which it considers a state sponsor of terrorism, as "a matter both of US law and US policy."
In addition, Weafer said that "getting Turkmen gas out to India would reduce Turkmenistan's ability to give gas to China or Russia."
In a possible sign of the strategic importance of US-Turkmen cooperation, the meeting between Mann and Niyazov came on the eve of a summit by the leaders of six ex-Soviet nations in Sochi on Tuesday, which some Russian commentators said was aimed at strengthening Russia's grip over Central Asian energy resources.
The leaders met within the framework of the Eurasian Economic Community, of which Turkmenistan is not a member.
AFP 15 1239 GMT 08 06
Copyright ©2006 AFP. All Rights Reserved.
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