UPI: India to join TAP Pipeline

NEW DELHI, Oct. 24 (UPI) — India says it will join the proposed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan gas pipeline project in November.

The move would be a major boost to the nation’s energy security, a spokesman for the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas said. TAP would become TAPI after India joins the project.

The Asian Development Bank has backed the project, which is aimed at importing natural gas from the Central Asian nation to meet India’s growing energy requirements.

The ADB has called for a meeting of the steering committee of the project between Nov. 28 and 29 in Islamabad, Pakistan, in which India formally would become a partner in the project. Following India’s formal induction, the four member nations are expected to sign a Project Heads of Agreement and a Gas Pipeline Framework Agreement.

Until now, India had observer status in the project.

The spokesman said the proposed pipeline would have a capacity of 33 billion cubic meters per year. The $4 billion, 1,680-kilometer pipeline will run from the Daulatabad gas field to Afghanistan. From there it will be constructed from Herat to Kandahar, and then via Quetta and Multan in Pakistan.

The pipeline faces logistical roadblocks, however, as it runs through Afghanistan and Pakistan, where security is likely to be a major concern.

AFP: Ancient heritage of Herat disappearing bit by bit beneath concrete

October 19, 2007

HERAT, Afghanistan (AFP) — In the ancient Afghan city of Herat, the fight is on between restoring historical monuments, palaces and houses or demolishing them to make way for bleak structures of smoked glass and concrete.

The battle in this once-essential stop along the Silk Road seems to be going the way of demolition — even if much of it is illegal.

Reconstruction needs a lot of time and work, as well as money and craftsmen skilled in ancient techniques necessary for recreating the vision of ancient architectural plans.

Herat is one of the few cities in Central Asia to have kept its medieval structure despite the march of time and the ravages of war.

In the 1980s the city near the Iranian border was home to around 200,000 inhabitants; today about three million people live here and the buildings stretch for miles.

Those who have swapped their traditional mudbrick homes for the new concrete blocks say they left to escape “the absence of comfort: running water, hot water, electricity and sanitation,” says Bismillah Fateh from the Agha Khan Trust for Culture.

The trust is working to restore a number of sites and lodgings in the western city which is more than 2,000 years old.

“It is a fight every day,” says Daud Sidiq, an architect with the foundation who has restored the Malik Cisterne and Mosque at the foot of the imposing Ikhtyaruddin citadel, the present structure of which was built in the 15th century.

Work is also underway on the palace of Attarbashi, the home of a wealthy physician that was constructed at the turn of the century and which is being restored with the agreement of the owner.

Winter and summer apartments face into a rectangular courtyard. Workers have put a large waterproof plastic sheet into the roof, a contemporary addition to a traditional technique.

Columns of stucco, reinforced with steel and asphalt, are whitewashed with a material made of limestone, ashes and flax, says Sidiq. For added protection from aging, nothing is better than mixing in “egg white, cooking oil and flour,” he says.

“We have been working for three months to bring back the old house,” says the architect, who is passionate about this undertaking.

Down narrow lanes, the historic homes of Kebabi and Akhawan have been entirely renovated and returned to their owners or their descendants.

To enter through their huge wooden gates, one has to choose between two large knockers — one for men and one for women: their different tones alert those inside to whether a man or a woman should answer.

In this maze, traditional structures are being given new life.

There is new paving in the old Jewish quarters, deserted in the 1970s. Two synagogues have been reconverted into a mosque and a school; one remains in ruins and another, its inside painted shiny blue, is being repaired.

The hamman, or bath, is again functioning for a male clientele.

“It is not a very expensive programme,” says Agha Khan urban planner Anna Soave, and there is support from a number of European nongovernment organisations.

The Commission for the Development of the Old City of Herat was created in 2005 but is handicapped by poor coordination between its members who include government and local groups.

The result: an acceleration of the demolition of the old and construction of illegal villas.

“All the illegal construction must be destroyed,” provincial governor Hossein Anwari said.

Reuters: Regional trade conference underway in Afghanistan

Wed Oct 17, 2007 9:26am BST
By Sayed Salahuddin

HERAT, Afghanistan, Oct 17 (Reuters) – A regional conference on trade among nations in the Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO) began on Wednesday in Afghanistan, the first such major gathering to be held for decades in the war-torn country.

Iran, Turkey and Pakistan are the founding members of the organisation, which was set up in 1985 and now includes seven other regional nations, Afghanistan among them.

In addition to investment, transit facilitation and trade, officials from the group are also expected to discuss exploration and export of gas and oil, said an Afghan official.

ECO member Turkmenistan for years has been keen to export its gas to Pakistan and beyond through Afghanistan, but the multi-billion dollar project has been held up due to insecurity in the country.

Afghanistan has been facing a resurgent Taliban-led insurgency.

Lying on the old Silk Road, Afghanistan serves as a bridge between some ECO member countries and has rich copper and iron reserves and some precious stones.

It is also a consumer market for products of some of the regional countries and its annual trade with them reaches to some $4 billion since the Taliban’s ouster in 2001, according to Afghan government estimates.

Since the Taliban’s overthrow, the country has not seen any major foreign and local investment, largely due to lack of infrastructure, rampant corruption and the increased insurgency in the past two years.

As part of a move to encourage local traders, the Afghan government recently abolished taxes on exports of goods from the country.

The four-day trade conference is being held in the western city of Herat, regarded as one of the safest areas of the country, which has largely prospered since the removal of the Taliban government.

Security was tight across the city on Wednesday. President Hamid Karzai, who has escaped a series of assassination attempts by suspected Taliban members, is expected to address the conference, Afghan officials said.

In addition to Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan, the ECO also includes Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

RFE/RL: Ring Road’s Completion Would Benefit Entire Region

Wednesday, October 10, 2007

By Ron Synovitz

October 10, 2007 (RFE/RL) — Financing is in place and construction is expected to begin soon on the last remaining section of Afghanistan’s “Ring Road,” a highway that loops the rugged mountain terrain and sparsely populated countryside to connect its major cities.

The Ring Road was conceived in the 1960s as a highway that makes a giant circle within the country to link its major cities. Secondary roads are meant to link provincial capitals and smaller towns to the Ring Road — much like the spokes of a bicycle wheel.

But despite its name, the Ring Road has never been a proper ring. War broke out in the 1970s before the northern section of the Ring Road was built. And in the decades of fighting that followed, large stretches of the existing 3,000-kilometer highway fell into disrepair or were destroyed.

A main focus of internationally backed reconstruction since the collapse of the Taliban regime in late 2001 has been to repair the existing highway and finish building the remainder of the Ring Road.

But it wasn’t until October 2 that a loan to finance the final section of unbuilt highway was announced by the Asian Development Bank — a stretch passing though mountainous terrain in northwestern Afghanistan near the border with Turkmenistan.

“We’re providing $176 million, along with the government of Afghanistan, which is also contributing $4 million,” says Brian Fawcett, the Asian Development Bank’s country director for Afghanistan:

“And this will be for the road from Bala Murghab to Leman, which is 143 kilometers,” he adds. “This section of road will almost complete the Ring Road. The government of Saudi Arabia and the Islamic Development Bank will do [the financing for the 50-kilometer section] from Leman to Amalick. And then the complete Ring Road will be finished.”

Still Much To Do

The bank describes the Ring Road as the “backbone” of Afghanistan’s transportation network, and its completion will be a major milestone for internationally backed reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan.

But Fawcett tells RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan it is unlikely the work will be finished by the proposed deadline in the Afghan National Development Plan, a strategy that was approved at a conference of international donors in London in April 2006.

“First, the [Afghan] government has to recruit the consultant for the project. And then, after the consultant finalizes the design of the road, then the contractor will be recruited,” Fawcett says. “So I think that the work will start, perhaps, in the first quarter of 2008. And the work will take 2 1/2 years to complete.”

Fawcett says the security of consultants and construction workers is a concern that the Asian Development Bank has raised with the Afghan government. He says the Interior Ministry has responded by sending additional police to Badghis Province and the northeastern part of Herat Province, where the work is to take place.

Regional Economic Impact

Niklas Swanstrom is a specialist on Central Asia and director of the Institute for Security and Development Policy, an independent think tank in Stockholm, Sweden. He says that the completion of the Ring Road will be a major benefit not only to Afghanistan but also to the former Soviet republics of Central Asia.

“The reason why it hasn’t been completed is, first of all, financing. It’s tremendously difficult to get good finances. And then, of course, the political situation has been very unstable. So even if you had financing, you would have a problem securing the actual construction of the Ring Road,” Swanstrom says.

“The consequences of this have been very negative,” he says. “Afghanistan has been a crucial factor in the whole economic equation of Central Asia. There have been estimates, for example, that the impact of [completing the Ring Road along with] all the regional network of trade would be 771,000 full-time jobs. It would be immense. It would be very positive.”

Swanstrom sees the Afghan Ring Road within the larger scope of infrastructure and transportation projects aimed at improving trade ties in the entire region.

“Financially, it will be very important if Afghanistan can act as a link for the Central Asian states toward” a seaport like Karachi in Pakistan, he says. “Trade could increase tremendously. I don’t think the impact will be that large in the initial stage.

“You have to connect Afghanistan with Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and, more importantly, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan — because that’s really where the economy comes from. Then you have the Persian-speaking crescent [of Iran, northern Afghanistan, and Tajikistan]. For the Iranians, I don’t think we should exaggerate the geopolitical impact of this network. On the contrary, I think the Iranians will struggle very hard to actually get the same benefits as many other countries.”

Other Infrastructure Still Needed

Swanstrom says that with no railroad network in Afghanistan, completion of the Ring Road will aid Afghans enormously. But he says there are other benefits than simply making overland travel within the country easier.

“Afghanistan’s exports will increase by 54 percent over the next five years,” Swanstrom says. “Very much of that is through agriculture. And you will see quite substantial job creation — long-term employment. It is also an increase in freight. Transit trade. Cotton going from Uzbekistan into Afghanistan and shipped all over the world. And, of course, if you can have oil and gas transit through Afghanistan, that’s where the major gains will be made for Afghanistan in particular. “

But although Swanstrom says the development of transit corridors is “all good,” he says there is one potentially negative aspect of completing the Ring Road and tying it into the highway networks of neighboring countries — the possible strengthening of organized criminal groups in Afghanistan and Central Asia.

“With this new infrastructure development, it will be much easier for the Afghani drug lords to transport heroin and opium from Afghanistan to the rest of the region. That’s something that needs to be dealt with because it’s going to be very, very difficult to handle it,” he says.

“We need to construct new institutions — legal institutions. We have to strengthen the police, the military, the drug-enforcement agencies. We have to make sure that judges and political leaders are uncorrupt,” he adds. “That’s a huge commitment not only from Afghanistan and the Central Asian states, but also from the international community. And we haven’t done much. We’re looking at the restructuring of much of the Afghan institutions. That’s fundamental.”

(RFE/RL’s Radio Free Afghanistan correspondent Ayaz Barhar contributed to the story from Kabul.)

Asian Development Bank approves new funding to complete Ring Road

October 2, 2007 (from http://www.infrasite.nl) 

Manila, Philippines – Work will soon start on building the last remaining section of Afghanistan’s “Ring Road” highway, which loops the country and connects its cities, after the Asian Development Bank approved a new $176 million grant.

Completion of the road network is essential for Afghanistan’s desperately needed economic growth.

The international community has already spent about $2 billion rebuilding roads and the only section of the 3000-kilometer Ring Road’s construction remaining to be funded is a 193 kilometer stretch between the western towns of Bala Murghab and Amalick. While ADB’s grant will finance a 143 kilometer section from Bala Murghab to Leman, the Islamic Development Bank and the Saudi Fund will co-finance the remaining 50 kilometer section from Leman to Amalick.

“The Ring Road is the backbone of Afghanistan’s transport network and its completion will be a major milestone in the international nation-building effort,” said Mr. Juan Miranda, Director General of ADB’s Central and West Asia Department, on a three-day visit to Kabul.

The new all-weather road will link northern Afghanistan with the country’s western region. It will cut travel times between the country’s northeast and southwest by three to five hours. This will lead to significantly lower transport costs, not only domestically but also between Central Asia and the Persian Gulf and Arabian Sea.

Afghanistan lies at a crossroads of ancient trade routes between Europe and eastern and southern Asia. Strands of the so-called Silk Road pass through the country.

Completion of the Ring Road will allow travelers from the capital, Kabul, wishing to reach the western city of Herat, near the Iranian border, to travel via a northern route, rather than through the southern city of Kandahar.

Local communities near the new road will be encouraged to participate in its construction and maintenance to ensure they immediately benefit from the project.

In addition to ADB’s $176 million grant, Afghanistan’s Government is contributing $4 million toward the construction. Part of the total will also be used for the ongoing refurbishment of another part of the Ring Road, between the northwestern towns of Andkhoy and Qaisar, while some of the funds will be used for general road maintenance elsewhere.

With the new grant, ADB will have contributed about $600 million to reconstructing roads in Afghanistan.

“The amount of traffic using the new routes is already much higher than expected, highlighting their urgent need,” Mr. Miranda said.

Progress has also been made in connecting Afghanistan with its neighbors. A month ago, a new bridge across the Pyanj River in northern Afghanistan provided the first road link with neighboring Tajikistan.

Since resuming operations in Afghanistan in 2001, ADB has approved more than $1 billion in assistance, focusing not only on roads but also on building and rehabilitating power transmission lines, irrigation infrastructure, and on governance and capacity building.