U.S. State Department Delegation Visits Ashgabat

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov has held talks in Ashgabat with members of a visiting U.S. delegation, including Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Nisha Desai Biswal.

The U.S. delegation arrived in the Turkmen capital to attend the third U.S.-Turkmenistan Annual Bilateral Consultations held on January 13-15.

Turkmen media reports said that the two sides discussed the situation in neighboring Afghanistan and construction of a Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India natural-gas pipeline, as well as the status of a railroad connecting Turkmenistan with Tajikistan via Afghanistan.

Bilateral ties in trade, energy, agriculture, transportation, communication, and education were the topic of talks on January 13.

The Annual Bilateral Consultations were established in 2010 as a regular mechanism for discussing the full range of issues in the U.S.-Turkmen relationship.

Based on reporting by TDH and turkmenistan.ru