Qishloq Ovozi (Archive)

When Maros Sefcovic, the European Commission vice president in charge of energy union, started talking about the Trans-Caspian Pipeline (TCP) project late last year, he rekindled many of the hopes and dreams that have been flickering embers for some 20 years.

Sefcovic’s visit to Turkmenistan at the end of April to discuss the gas pipeline across the Caspian Sea emphasized greater determination on the part of the European Union to see the project realized. His statement that Turkmen gas could reach the EU by 2019 indicated a seriousness not seen before.

But even if the EU has a new will to construct the TCP and tap into the resources of Turkmenistan, a country with the world’s fourth-largest gas reserves, many of the obstacles that have so far prevented billions of cubic meters (bcm) of Turkmen gas from reaching the European market still remain.

RFE/RL’s Turkmen Service, known locally as Azatlyk, assembled a panel to discuss the prospects for construction of the TCP and for shipping Turkmen gas to Europe.

Azatlyk Director Muhammad Tahir moderated the panel. The participants included:

-- John Roberts, a security and energy specialist and former editor at Platts Journal who was speaking from Turkmenistan, where he was participating in the sixth-annual International Gas Forum

-- Steve Levine, a noted authority on energy matters and the author of several books, among them The Oil And The Glory: The Pursuit Of Empire And Fortune On The Caspian Sea and the just-released The Powerhouse: Inside The Invention Of A Battery To Save The World

-- Paolo Sorbello, a researcher and journalist who specializes in energy issues, particularly Caspian Basin countries, and who has written for The Conway Bulletin, openDemocracy, Eurasianet, Milano Finanza, and L’Indro

I was also there but was content to listen to what the other three had to say.

First, the doubt.

The TCP project has been around since the mid-1990s. The idea is to build a pipeline across the bottom of the Caspian Sea to carry Turkmen gas to Azerbaijan, from there in pipelines through Georgia to Turkey and further on into Europe.

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov told Sefcovic that Turkmenistan is ready to supply Europe with gas. That statement is nothing new. That has been Turkmenistan’s position since the project was first pitched 20 years ago.

Levine recalled, “Turkmenistan itself has never had the confidence to sign a deal, to sign a real deal with one of the companies, with a group of companies to build that line” because of concerns about Russia.

Levine said Turkmenistan’s participation depends on “whether he (Berdymukhammedov) is willing to risk Putin’s wrath. Really, it's Russia that scares Turkmenistan and it's hard to understand how if Berdymukhammedov would not do this for 10 years, why now he would while Putin is on the warpath in Ukraine.”

Roberts followed that thought, pointing out, “I think that the problem the Turkmen face is they do not know what kind of protection they would get from the European Union or from anyone else if they were to go ahead with this project.”

There is another consideration.

Roberts noted, “The Turkmen official position is quite simply that anybody can build a pipeline to the borders of Turkmenistan and as soon as that pipeline is ready for use, they will supply gas for it.”

Gas companies such as Russia’s Gazprom or Azerbaijan’s SOCAR participate in building the export pipelines to their customers. Turkmengaz does not. Those who want Turkmen gas must build the pipeline to Turkmenistan to receive it.

Sorbello brought up the point that if the TCP is built, it is unclear how much gas Turkmenistan could realistically supply in the short- to midterm.

“We see now that they produce 100, 110, 120 bcm a year and from that, it would actually all go to export if all the projects that they have in mind are built,” Sorbello said, adding, “I don't see the possibility for Turkmenistan to basically double production.”

Estimates for Turkmen gas production this year are between 100 and 110 bcm, but domestic needs will consume somewhere between 22 and 25 bcm of that. Turkmenistan has contracts to ship some 80 bcm to China once the fourth and final pipeline of the branches connecting the two countries is completed, possibly as soon as late next year. Turkmenistan also supplies some 8 bcm to Iran and this year has an agreement to ship some 4 bcm to Russia.

However, the Turkmen government aims to produce some 230 bcm of gas by 2030 and export 180 bcm of that.

And on that positive note, it’s time to look at why the TCP could be built and start sending gas to Europe, according to Sefcovic's prediction.

It was agreed that, technically, the pipeline could be built by 2019. Roberts said, “If -- and it's a very big if -- but if the Turkmen were to sign export contracts, then there would be time to put the extra compression and build the extra looping on the pipeline for it to start in 2019 or 2020.”

He said Turkmen exports would initially be limited to some 10 bcm.

But Roberts illustrated how this was a better scenario for Turkmenistan, drawing attention to the offshore Turkmen field being developed by the Malaysian company Petronas. Petronas has 10 bcm of gas extracted from the Caspian Sea bed but nowhere to ship it.

“That gas is described publicly by the Petronas people as stranded gas. It's gas that has no real place [to go],” Roberts said, explaining that the offshore field, being much closer to Azerbaijan, does not require that the pipeline be built all the way to the Turkmen mainland to start contributing.

That still leaves Russia.

Levine said “Turkmenistan needs to figure out how to make it (TCP) beneficial and ultimately a profitable situation for Russia for that gas to go forward.” He reminded the panel that Turkmenistan was able to reach gas-export deals with China and “one of the factors was that the Chinese let Russian construction companies build a lot of the pipeline, so there was a profit motive."

The discussion was packed with information and touched on Iran, TAPI, and other issues in Caspian Basin energy politics.

The audio recording of the roundtable can be heard here:

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Roundtable On Trans-Caspian Pipeline

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-- Bruce Pannier

Militants of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) found sanctuary in Pakistan’s tribal areas for more than a decade. Now, it appears many have left and are looking for a new home. They might have found one in Afghanistan, right on the doorstep of their native land.

In recent months, Afghan government and military officials have claimed that an uptick of violence in the country's northern provinces is partly due to an influx of foreign fighters.

While it is hard to ascertain where militants fighting in northern Afghanistan are from, it is likely that many belong to the IMU. Those new arrivals probably fled to Afghanistan after a May 2014 Pakistani military operation in the North Waziristan tribal region, where many IMU fighters were based.

With a local population made up mainly of ethnic Tajik, Uzbek, and Turkmen, the northern Afghan provinces make a natural home for the IMU. The area borders Central Asia, the birthplace of the militant group, which emerged in the late 1990s to overthrow the Uzbek government and is on the U.S. State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations.

Initially, local Afghan officials said the militants were small in number and only there to support local Taliban forces. But in recent months there has been a flurry of reports of government troops battling militants and "foreign fighters" in the provinces of Badakhshan, Takhar, Kunduz, Jowzjan, Faryab, and Badghis. Thinly stretched Afghan forces have been unable to gain the upper hand and militants have been quick to exploit the government forces' weakness.

On April 10, some 200 militants overran government positions in the Jurm district of Badakhshan Province. Government forces counterattacked and recaptured the district. Dozens were killed, including four enemy fighters identified as “Tajik nationals.”

On April 24, Kunduz Governor Omer Safi told RFE/RL's Turkmen Service that “around 3,000 militants are fighting in five major districts" and Afghan security forces had found “some Chechens and some Tajiks” among the enemy dead. The Associated Press cited Safi as saying the bodies of 18 foreign militants were retrieved from the battlefield and that the dead came from "Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey, and Chechnya.” Safi said many of the militants had traveled “with their families.”

Further west, in three Afghan provinces bordering Turkmenistan, there has also been a spike in violence.

In a remote and hard-to-access region, it is incredibly difficult to say who and where the militants are from. Some Afghan officials have mentioned a militant group called Jamaat Ansarullah, which is the Tajik wing of the IMU, while other officials have used the term Jundullah, a combination of Jamaat Ansarullah and the IMU.

Badakhshan Governor Shah Waliullah Adeeb told RFE/RL's Gandhara website on April 15 that most of the militants were foreigners. Adeeb said that “some 200 fighters, some of them with their families, are now based in the Dara-e Khustak area” and identified those fighters as being from “Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Chechnya, and other countries.”

In fighting this week in Jowzjan’s Aqcha district, officials said there are at least 300 “foreign” fighters among enemy forces. Speaking to RFE/RL's Turkmen Service, civilians in the region claim these foreigners are speaking Uzbek and Tajik with accents that reveal they are originally from Central Asia, not Afghanistan.

What's also unclear is how many militants there are and whether they are fighting alongside their traditional ally, the Afghan Taliban, or if they are pursuing their own goals and changing allies according to necessity.

The Taliban provided sanctuary for the IMU in 1999 and 2000, when the latter was launching attacks in the area where the borders of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan meet. In 2001, the IMU stayed in Afghanistan and was involved in the Taliban's push to capture the remaining 5 percent of Afghanistan that was still outside its control. Many IMU fighters then fled to Pakistan after a U.S. bombing campaign in late 2001.

Some Afghan officials have claimed that a portion of the militants fighting in northern Afghanistan are loyal to Islamic State (IS), but the evidence for this is scanty. While there could be a small IS presence in Afghanistan, the few groups publicly claiming allegiance are fringe or outcast elements perhaps just looking for publicity -- or possibly even funding from the world's richest terrorist organization.

Another crucial question concerns the fighters' goals. Some Afghan military officials and local militia commanders have claimed these militants are intent on holding the ground they’ve seized, unlike previous Taliban groupings that usually attacked then withdrew when the government rallied forces. There have also been claims that IMU militants, rather than the Taliban, are directing some of the fighting.

For now, IMU fighters in Afghanistan seem more focused on their survival than anything else. It wasn't always that way. Their original goal when they first emerged in the late 1990s was to violently unseat Uzbekistan's government. They then expanded that goal to include the capture of all of Central Asia.

When they were based in the Pakistani tribal areas, the IMU often took part in attacks launched by their allies and hosts -- Tehreek-e Taliban and Al-Qaeda -- on targets in Pakistan. Attacking those targets wasn't part of the IMU's original agenda but was perhaps necessary to remain in the sanctuaries offered to them and their families. Freed from this obligation and now being closer to their Central Asian homeland, the IMU may well refocus their goals and again concentrate on the group's original objectives.

They will eventually have to settle somewhere. They are unlikely to go back to Pakistan and Shi'ite Iran would provide no welcome. The southern lands of Afghanistan are Pashtun territory and the IMU has a history of bad relations with the Pashtuns, at least in Pakistan's tribal areas.

For now, their best option appears to be to stay where they are -- at the gateway to their homeland.

-- Bruce Pannier

Radio Mashaal Director Amin Mudaqiq, Zarif Nazar of Radio Azadi, and Azatlyk Director Muhammad Tahir contributed to this report