For The Turkmen And Uzbek Leaders, A Meeting Of Minds On Afghanistan

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Bruce Pannier
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
October 9, 2021

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov just visited Uzbekistan for talks with Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoev and, even though the two leaders have met several times recently, it was important for them — and only them — to sit down to discuss the number one topic in the region these days: Afghanistan.

That is because Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan have a similar policy toward their southern neighbor, one focused on the economic potential of trade routes through Afghanistan.

Both presidents made clear at their October 5 meeting that their countries would continue to provide help “to the people of Afghanistan.”

Mirziyoev said the situation in Afghanistan has a large influence on “the security and sustainable development of the region.”

“Sustainable development” was a key comment since there are projects that could greatly benefit Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan but require stability in Afghanistan and the cooperation of whoever is in charge of that country.

For Turkmenistan the project is the 1,800-kilometer Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) natural-gas pipeline that aims to annually export some 33 billion cubic meters (bcm) of Turkmen gas.

It is a project that seemed possible the last time the Taliban controlled most of Afghanistan in the late 1990s but has been completely unfeasible since due to insecurity in Afghanistan.

The policy Turkmenistan is pursuing now toward the Taliban is the policy of Turkmenistan’s first president, Saparmurat Niyazov, who stayed out of Afghan politics and was willing to deal with anyone in power there to advance Turkmenistan’s economic interests.

Pakistan wants TAPI to be built and has more influence over the Taliban than any other country.

With natural-gas prices currently at obscenely high record levels of well over $1,000 per 1,000 cubic meters, the government in cash-strapped Turkmenistan must be waiting eagerly for a sign the TAPI project is moving forward.

There remains a challenge in finding investors and financing for the project. Plus, India’s role might be in question, again, as it has been several times before over the years, though Pakistan would almost surely take India’s share of the gas. (Under the current breakdown, Afghanistan would get 5 billion cubic meters (bcm) annually; Pakistan 14 bcm; and India 14 bcm).

But Turkmenistan claims it has constructed its segment of the pipeline leading from Turkmen gas fields to the Afghan border, though there have been doubts of this claim before.

But recently it seems there has been work done on Turkmenistan’s section of TAPI and at least $219 million spent on pipeline segments purchased from Russia’s Chelyabinsk Pipe Rolling Plant in 2019.

Uzbek President Mirziyoev’s government seems to be using the Niyazov model in its engagement with the Taliban.

In Uzbekistan’s case, as previously noted, a lot of money has already gone into infrastructure projects in the last 15 years that link Uzbekistan to Afghanistan.

Several projects are unfinished or not yet started, but two are of significant value to Uzbekistan — a railway and a new power transmission line.

Uzbekistan is connected by rail to the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif.

China has already shipped goods to Afghanistan using this route and NATO used the Uzbek railway link for transporting material between Europe and Afghanistan.

President Mirziyoev has met twice with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan since July and both times construction of a railway line from Mazar-e Sharif through Kabul to Peshawar was high on the agenda.

Such a link would give Uzbekistan, and other countries in Asia and Europe, a connection to Pakistani ports on the Arabian Sea.

That should boost shipments of cargo in both directions, giving Uzbekistan extra revenue from transit fees and justifying the expense of the huge Termez Cargo Center that Uzbekistan built near the Afghan border in 2018.

Those are projects for the future. But for now, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan already export electricity to Afghanistan via power transmission lines built after 2001, and, as was expected, the Taliban government is short of cash and unable to pay for electricity imports.

According to the Asian Development Bank, 73 percent of Afghanistan’s electricity is imported. Of that, Uzbekistan supplies 57 percent, Iran 22 percent, Turkmenistan 17 percent, and Tajikistan 4 percent.

There are various figures for how much money Afghanistan has been spending on electricity imports, but it appears to have been around $300 million per year.

So Turkmenistan has been receiving some $51 million and Uzbekistan about $171 million for electricity exports to Afghanistan.

And Uzbekistan is constructing a 260-kilometer section of a 500-kilovolt power line from Surkhon in Uzbekistan to Pul-e Khumri, north of Kabul, that would boost Uzbek electricity exports to Afghanistan by some 70 percent.

Turkmenistan’s electricity goes to northwestern Afghanistan, but Uzbekistan’s electricity powers Kabul.

When several power stations in Uzbekistan went off line in early January, it left Kabul in darkness and when the Taliban destroyed two power pylons on the transmission line in September 2019, it caused major power shortages in the Afghan capital.

So Afghanistan needs Uzbek electricity.

The Wall Street Journal recently reported that Afghanistan’s state power company has no more than $40 million to pay for energy imports and that could lead to its Central Asian neighbors suspending electricity supplies to Afghanistan.

During Berdymukhammedov’s visit to Uzbekistan, officials from both countries said there were no plans to discontinue electricity exports to Afghanistan.

The Turkmen and Uzbek governments have a history of keeping a tight rein on religion in their own countries. But the lure of pipeline, power line, and railway connections to and through Afghanistan seems to have convinced the governments in both countries that the cost of overlooking the Taliban’s religious extremism is worth the potential gain in trade both countries could see if these big projects are realized.

In Uzbekistan’s case, this was emphasized at the October 7 visit of Uzbek Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov to Kabul where he and Taliban officials discussed construction of the Surhon-Pul-e Khumri power line and the Mazar-e Sharif-Kabul Peshawar railway line.

One more thing distinguishes Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan from their Central Asian neighbors.

Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are the only two Central Asian countries that do not border Russia or China. Both have long looked to the south for connectivity to the wider world.

They might not like the Taliban — they wouldn’t even say the word “Taliban,” only referencing the “government in Afghanistan” — but tolerating and engaging with the Afghan group could help both Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan see huge profits.

Berdymukhammedov and Mirziyoev did not say this, but it likely has not escaped their notice.

Copyright (c) 2021. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.

U.S. delegation to meet Taliban in first high-level talks since pullout – officials

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Reuters: A U.S. delegation will meet with senior Taliban representatives in Doha on Saturday and Sunday in their first face-to-face meeting at a senior level since Washington pulled its troops from Afghanistan and the hardline group took over the country, two senior administration officials told Reuters. U.S. Special Representative Zalmay Khalilzad, who has for years spearheaded U.S. dialogue with the Taliban and been a key figure in peace talks with the group, will not be part of the delegation. Click here to read more (external link).

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ISIS-K is trying to undermine Afghanistan’s Taliban regime, from inside and out. That’s America’s problem, too.

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CBS News: Some Taliban foot soldiers are believed to have abandoned the group to join ISIS-K or al Qaeda, preferring an even more extreme — and brutal — interpretation of Islam, but these sources say the ISIS faction is working deliberately to undermine the Taliban’s authority from both inside and outside the group. Click here to read more (external link).

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US Diplomat Discusses Afghanistan, Bilateral Ties With Pakistan Leaders

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VOA News
October 8, 2021

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman met Friday with leaders in Pakistan to discuss developments in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan and ways to advance cooperation across the bilateral relationship.

Sherman, who arrived in the country late Thursday from neighboring India, is the most senior U.S. diplomat to visit Islamabad since President Joe Biden’s administration took office.

She opened her visit with a meeting with the Pakistani national security adviser, Moeed Yusuf, before holding delegation-level talks with Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi.

Qureshi’s office quoted him as sharing Pakistan’s optimism with the U.S. delegation that the Taliban-led government in Afghanistan “will work for peace and stability, as well as for the betterment of all Afghans.”

He emphasized the need for “positive participation” of the international community in Afghanistan to enable the flow of humanitarian and financial resources to help “build a sustainable economy to alleviate the suffering of the Afghan people.”

Qureshi emphasized the importance of “close and regular engagement” between Pakistan and the United States to promote “mutual interests and common regional goals,” the statement said.

Pakistan’s traditionally tumultuous relationship with the United States, however, is under renewed pressure in the aftermath of the dramatic Taliban takeover of Afghanistan in August.

The tensions are rooted in long-running allegations that Pakistan has had deep ties with, and covertly supported, the Taliban, as the Islamist insurgents battled the U.S.-backed Afghan government for almost 20 years — charges denied by Islamabad.

Late last month, a group of 22 Republican senators introduced legislation to impose sanctions on the Taliban and on all foreign governments that support the hardline Islamic group.

The bill also seeks official input from U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken about his assessment of the role Pakistan played in supporting the Taliban’s return to power in Kabul.

“It is an attempt to pass the buck,” Qureshi told a recent news conference, responding to the proposed legislation.

“Scapegoating Pakistan would be overlooking ground realities. And they have to understand that a partnership with Pakistan is required in the future, as well, to achieve stability in Afghanistan and the region,” Qureshi said.

Islamabad insists it is being blamed for America’s failures in Afghanistan, even though it facilitated peace talks between the United States and the Taliban that culminated in the February 2020 agreement between the two adversaries. That paved the way for Washington to withdrawal all its troops from Afghanistan in late August.

Washington says it is closely monitoring whether the Taliban will uphold their promises of tolerance and govern Afghanistan through an inclusive political system where all ethnicities are represented while also ensuring protection of women’s rights.

Islamabad has maintained it is not in a rush to recognize the new Taliban government, but it has been urging the U.S. and other countries to engage with the new rulers in Kabul rather than abandoning the turmoil-hit country.

Russia, China and Iran also have moved to directly engage with the Taliban and have called for the removal of sanctions, including the unfreezing of Afghan financial assets mostly deposited in the U.S. federal reserves. All of these countries, however, also have stopped short of granting diplomatic recognition to the Taliban unless they deliver on their commitments.

“The crisis in Afghanistan has had a damning effect on U.S.-Pakistan relations,” Raoof Hasan, special assistant to Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan, wrote in a recent article.

“An investment of over 70 years in building a relationship has ended up at the beginning again. I believe that the two countries need to engage in a multifaceted dialogue to reorient, even reinvent, this relationship,” Hasan said in the Lahore-based Pakistan Politico magazine.

The bilateral tensions come as Islamabad campaigns for resetting its relationship with Washington and others on what Islamabad calls “geo-economics,” or development and trade, to move away from the traditional security-based partnership.

Adam Weinstein, a research fellow at the Washington-based Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, said expectations are low for a significant outcome of Sherman’s visit to Pakistan.

“Pakistan wants the United States to formally recognize the Taliban and accept a geo-economic reset that broadens U.S.-Pakistan relations to issues beyond security. Neither is going to happen anytime soon,” Weinstein said.

Counterterrorism remains a key area, however, where the U.S. will need Pakistan’s cooperation to counter any future terror threat now that American troops are out of Afghanistan.

“If Washington’s diplomatic outreach to Pakistan revolves around counterterrorism to the exclusion of all other issues, then that’s not diplomacy but rather militarized diplomacy,” Weinstein said.

“Washington has grown accustomed to the political expediency of managing U.S.-Pakistan relations through the generals and intelligence agencies. This habit is likely to continue, but Sherman’s visit is still welcome outreach from a civilian diplomat,” he said.

During her visit to India, Sherman made it clear her trip to Pakistan was for a “particular set of reasons” in the context of Afghanistan.

“We don’t see ourselves building a broad relationship with Pakistan,” Indian media quoted the U.S. diplomat as telling an event in the Indian city of Mumbai on Thursday.

“But we all need to know what’s going on in Afghanistan. We all need to be of one mind in the approach to the Taliban. We all need to make sure that we have the capabilities that we need to ensure everybody’s security, including India’s and the U.S. of course. And so, I’m going to have some very specific conversations,” Sherman said.

More Than 100 Said Killed And Wounded In Suicide Blast Inside Afghan Shi’ite Mosque

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Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
October 8, 2021

A suicide blast inside a Shi’ite mosque in the northern Afghan province of Kunduz has reportedly killed and wounded at least 100 people in the bloodiest attack since the Taliban took control of most of the country in August.

In a tweet, the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) expressed deep concern about the October 8 attack in Khanabad district, citing initial information indicating that “more than 100 people were killed and injured.”

Dost Mohammad Obaida, the provincial deputy police chief, said the majority of the victims had been killed, while Matiullah Rohani, a member of the Taliban-led administration in Kunduz Province, confirmed that the explosion was a suicide attack.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, which witnesses said hit the Gozar-e Sayed Abad Mosque during the weekly Friday Prayers service while video footage showed bodies surrounded by debris inside the building.

An unidentified medical source at the Kunduz Provincial Hospital said the facility had received the bodies of 35 people killed in the blast, as well as more than 50 wounded patients, while a worker at a Doctors Without Borders (MSF) hospital reported 15 dead according to AFP.

MSF reported that at least 20 people were killed and 90 others injured at the Shi’ite mosque in the city of Kunduz.

The bombing follows several attacks in recent weeks, some of which have been claimed by the local affiliate of the Islamic State extremist group — the Islamic State-Khorasan Province (IS-K).

The attacks have underscored security challenges for the Taliban, which took control of most of the war-torn country in August and has since carried out operations against the IS-K.

In a separate tweet, UNAMA said the October 8 suicide attack was part of a “disturbing pattern of violence” and noted that it was the third attack apparently targeting religious institutions over the past week.

It cited a deadly blast claimed by the IS-K that struck near the entrance of a Kabul mosque on October 3 as mourners left a prayer ceremony dedicated to the dead mother of the Taliban’s top spokesman.

Another attack on October 6 that targeted a madrasah in Khost remains unclaimed, the UN mission said.

With reporting by AFP, AP, and Reuters

Copyright (c) 2021. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave NW, Ste 400, Washington DC 20036.

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Four Died amid Dengue Fever Outbreak in Nangarhar

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Tolo News: At least four people have died of dengue fever amidst the outbreak of the viral disease in the province where officials said 26 people have been infected with the virus in the last two weeks. Officials said that the cases have been reported in remote districts of the province that share a border with Pakistan.  Click here to read more (external link).

‘Taliban Will Pay a Price’: The Day America Launched The War in Afghanistan

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Bush

Michael Hughes
AOPNEWS
October 7, 2021

On Sunday, October 7, 2001, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Time, George W. Bush in a nationally televised address told the American people the U.S. military had begun conducting airstrikes in Afghanistan in response to the 9/11 attacks.

The moment marked the beginning of “Operation Enduring Freedom,” as well as the “Global War on Terrorism (GWOT).”

“I gave Taliban leaders a series of clear and specific demands: Close terrorist training camps; hand over leaders of the al Qaeda network; and return all foreign nationals, including American citizens, unjustly detained in your country,” Bush said from behind a desk in the treaty room. “None of these demands were met.  And now the Taliban will pay a price.”

The military action, the president continued, represented “another front,” in the war against terrorism.

Bush said allies such as the UK, Canada, Australia, Germany and France had pledged forces as the military operation unfolded, while more than 40 countries in the region granted the coalition air transit or landing rights.  

The day after the bombing The New York Post ran a classic headline with the words “TALI-BAM” and “America Strikes Back.”

The first operation got underway at around 12:15 p.m. EST / 8:45 p.m. local time on October 7.

The U.S. bombed the Kabul airport, the Taliban defense and interior ministries, and cut off the electricity supply. The coalition also struck Mazar-i-Sharif and Konduz in the north and Herat in the West. 

Mullah Omar’s compound in the southern province of Kandahar was bombed along with terrorist training camps in Jalalabad in the east, among other Taliban and al-Qaeda targets.

The first wave of intense bombing was conducted primarily by U.S. and British forces using 15 bombers, 20 strike aircraft, 50 tomahawk missiles – with a second wave hitting Taliban surface-to-air missile sites.

Pentagon chief Don Rumsfeld told reporters in the afternoon that the “war against terrorism,” will use every element of American influence and power.

“The aim is to create conditions for sustained anti-terrorist and humanitarian relief efforts in Afghanistan,” Rumsfeld added.

Meanwhile, the very same day, al-Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden – from an undisclosed mountainous locale – would release a video clip of his message.

“What America is tasting now is only a copy of what we have tasted… I swear to God that America will not live in peace before peace reigns in Palestine, and before all the army of infidels depart the land of Muhammad, peace be upon him,” Bin Laden said.

This sentiment, of course, contrasted sharply with America’s stated motives.

“The name of today’s military operation is Enduring Freedom,” Bush said during his October 7 address. “We defend not only our precious freedoms, but also the freedom of people everywhere to live and raise their children free from fear.”

The coalition would go on to topple the Taliban by mid-November, although the movement would re-emerge a few years later in the form of an insurgency that eventually defeated Western and Afghan forces, forcing a retreat of American troops, the final boot leaving the country last month.

According to the Brown University Costs of War project, over the past two decades the $2.4 trillion war killed at least 120,000 Afghans – including 46,000 civilians, 70,000 Afghan troops, and 53,000 opposition fighters. The conflict took the lives of over 6,000 American troops (regular and contractors combined) in addition to another 1,200 or so allied forces.

Today, exactly 20 years after the first bomb was dropped in the Afghan war, Bush’s threat to punish the Taliban rings like a hallow – albeit largely forgotten – echo through the corridors of history, in yet another example of the blinding power of American hubris.


Ashraf Ghani’s brother told abp news – We have no choice but to accept the Talibani rule

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Hasmat Ghani

ABP: ABP News has a special conversation with Hasmat Ghani, the brother and politician of former President Ashraf Ghani, who was present in Afghanistan after the occupation of Taliban. Hashmat Ghani has said that now we have no other option but to accept the Talibani rule. He said that if Ashraf Ghani had not left the country, he would have been killed. Click here to read more (external link).

Son of Afghanistan’s Former Defense Minister Buys $20.9 Million Beverly Hills Mansion

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Abdul Rahim Wardak

Yahoo: He already owns a $5.2 million Miami Beach condo at the prestigious St. Regis Bal Harbour resort, but Daoud Wardak apparently also wants a West Coast outpost. To that end, he’s heading for Beverly Hills — records reveal the semi-mysterious businessman, who is a son of former Afghan Minister of Defense Abdul Rahim Wardak, has bought a $20.9 million mansion on a prime Trousdale Estates street. Click here to read more (external link).