Meeting with Taliban held in Ashgabat
The heads of the country's Foreign Ministry met with representatives of the Taliban movement today, in the capital of Turkmenistan. Follow the details on our website. Turkmenistan, being a neutral state, takes an active part in stabilizing the situation in the countries of the region. The Turkmen leadership and diplomats already have experience of inter-Tajik and inter-Afghan negotiations, and official Ashgabat has repeatedly noted that the neutral status of the country guarantees the provision of optimal site for such meetings. Moreover, in the situation with Afghanistan, the negotiations in Ashgabat guarantee equal opportunities for all participants in the process: both for the Afghan government and the Taliban movement, as well as for representatives of various ethnic groups and tribes inhabiting the country. But, in addition to diplomatic partnership, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan are linked by joint economic and infrastructure projects: the construction of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) transnational gas pipeline, the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan (TAP) high-voltage power transmission line and fiber-optic communication, and the Akina-Andhoy railway. The Taliban is a movement that originated in Afghanistan among the Pashtuns in 1994, and ruled the country from 1996 to 2001.
