Turkmenistan, Afghanistan to build new railway

ASHGABAT, March 13 (Itar-Tass) -- Turkmenistan and Afghanistan will jointly built a 120-kilometers long railway line from Amatyrat,
Turkmenistan, to Akina, Afghanistan.
Presently, the two neighbouring countries are connected by a
10-kilometres line from Kuska in Turkmenistan to Toragundi / Herat in
Afghanistan/. It went operational in 1960 and further on it was
reconstructed in 2007.
Turkmenistan's ministry of railroads transport informed their
Afghanistan's counterparts they had finalised a project of the
85-kilometres part from Atamyrat to Imamnazar. This part of the line will be constructed by Turkemenistan. Afghanistan suggested Turkmenistan makes a project for the 35-kilometres part in Afghanistan from Imamnazar to Akina.
The major infrastructure project will be a mighty impetus for the
further development of Afghanistan's economy, successful social projects, including those in employment, participants in the talks confirmed. They discussed possible involvement in the project of international organisations, donor-countries and international financial institutions.
The railway line construction is the third joint project of
Turkmenistan and Afghanistan. In February of the current year,
Turkmenistan's president signed an order to start construction of a new electricity supply lime to Afghanistan. It will increase by five times, to 300 mega watts, Turkmenistan's export of electricity to the neighbouring country. Another even bigger project is construction of a gas pipe like Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India, which started its development in December 2010. At the initiative of Turkmenistan's president, Ashgabat hosted a summit on the pipeline, where the four countries signed an agreement on the gas pipeline project.
The 1,700-kilometre Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI)
pipeline, Ashgabat's dream project that first appeared in 1995, has been on hold for many years due to the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan. The TAPI pipeline aims to transport over 30 billion cubic metres of gas annually from the Dauletabad gas fields in southeast Turkmenistan and could turn into a cash cow for Afghanistan in transit fees. Most of this gas will be shipped to energy-hungry Pakistan and India. The Afghan government has sought to reassure those concerned about the safety of the pipeline. It announced that the government will pay local communities to guard the pipe, which will be buried underground, making it harder to attack.