Tag Archives: Turkmenistan

One golden opportunity for ECO member countries to increase trade and investment is in the road and rail development projects under the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor.

With free trade zones and only 72 kilometers to be inter-connected by road and rail, Chahbahar and Gwadar are complementary instead of being in competition.

Currently, ISIL does not seem to be operating in Afghanistan or Central Asian countries; yet, all necessary measures should be taken by the regional governments to take away the hope of ISIL surviving in the region.

State gas companies of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, and India have established TAPI Pipeline Company to build, own and operate the planned 1,800-kilometer natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan. The move has rekindled hopes of Turkmenistan's gas reaching energy-starved India and Pakistan.

Central Asia’s share of the world’s reserves of natural gas is somewhat higher at 11 per cent; still, it falls short of the Middle East’s share, 43 per cent. Hydrocarbon rents have enabled the authoritarian regimes in Central Asia to provide the welfare services that ensure their populations’ acquiescence in their government.

It is one of the biggest hunts ever – involving dozens of ships, planes across vast oceans and thousands of people on the Internet searching real-time satellite pictures – but Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 is still lost.   The Boeing 777-200ER carrying 239 people vanished exactly a week ago, while on an overnight flight to Beijing but a search that …

On 15 January, authorities in Beijing arrested the outspoken critic of government policies in Xinjiang, Ilham Tohti. Tohti, an Uyghur scholar, has called into question the dominant government narratives on aggressive economic development for the Uyghur and the extent of Uyghur ‘terrorism’.   Just days after Tohti’s arrest the Xinjiang regional government announced that it would double the public security bureau’s ‘counter-terrorism’ …

Central Asian water conservation specialists are discussing supply problems and ways to overcome them.   The region has strong incentives to save the precious resource, they say, noting that it has ample water resources but uneven distribution. Discussions frequently lead to quarrels rather than to solutions. Border disputes, the threat of extremism, and water disputes are among the region’s primary …

At present, Moscow has essentially shut India out from Kyrgyzstan after sending the first installments of a new US$1 billion military aid package to the country. This follows the strategic setback that India suffered in 2010 when it lost use of the Tajikistan Ayni airbase to Russia. And in the two larger, energy-rich nations of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, New Delhi …

In a rare assembly of representatives of governments of countries in South and Central Asia, parliaments and the private sector as well as experts from China, the US and Europe sat in Islamabad on September 1 and 2 to discuss not the security challenge but the energy promise that the region offers.