TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) gas pipeline to be revived; Kazakhstan hosts OSCE Summit; Kazakhstan official calls summit an opportunity for Kazakhstan to contribute to the global security;
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    • The Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline, which was stalled nearly a decade due to security and unstable conditions, will be revived finally when the leaders of the four countries would come together at a summit in Turkmenistan on December 10-11, 2010. India will be represented by Petroleum Minister Murli Deora and the other three states will be represented by their respective Presidents. The 1,680 kilometers pipeline route runs through Dauletabad-Heart-Kandahar-Quetta-Multan and finally terminates at the Indian town of Fazilka. It would be worth noting that Asian Development Bank (ADB) has been keenly involved in the project. India has already agreed in principle to the pipeline project. As the proposed route passes the south-west of Afghanistan, where Taliban is active, Indian consent will depend on satisfactory arrangements on the security and pricing front.1 Once this is settled, discussions on the mechanics of construction, a global tender and a business model will follow.2

    Kazakhstan, who has been chairing the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) hosted a summit in its capital, Astana on December 1-2. "This summit and the chairmanship are the opportunity for Kazakhstan to contribute to global security," said Roman Vassilenko, an official in Kazakh Foreign Ministry.3 Heads of state, heads of governments and foreign ministers of 56 member states participated in the summit. The Astana Summit brought together other top officials from 12 Partners for Co-operation, as well as from other international and regional organizations. This has been the first summit in the current decade after the last one held in Istanbul in 1999.

    Kazakhstan’s head of state Nursultan Nazarbayev in his opening address said, “Initially, the Helsinki process had been developed on the concept of a common European home ‘stretching from the Atlantic to the Urals’. With the establishment of the OSCE, the principles of European security were entrenched in the space ‘from Vancouver to Vladivostok’. Now begins the third stage.”4 The Summit concluded with the leaders at the Summit adopting the “Astana Commemorative Declaration: Towards a Security Community”5 that reaffirmed their commitment to OSCE principles.

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