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TAPI talks planned during U.N. meeting

ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan, Aug. 24 (UPI) -- Leaders from Ashgabat and Kabul will meet in the United States in September to discuss a trilateral natural gas pipeline, the Turkmen government said.

Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdimuhamedov said Afghan President Hamid Karzai agreed to discuss the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India natural gas pipeline on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly's 65th session scheduled for September at U.N. headquarters in New York.

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"The two sides agreed to meet next month in New York ... and discuss in detail the issues of implementation, construction of the transnational gas pipeline Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India, designed to serve as the economic prosperity of the member countries of this large-scale project and the whole region," the Trend News Agency quoted a Turkmen government statement as reading.

Kabul hosts a meeting Sunday on bilateral trade initiatives with Turkmenistan, the report added.

Berdimuhamedov said his country was interested in laying the foundations for economic prosperity in Afghanistan as a way to bring security to the beleaguered country.

The 1,043-mile TAPI pipeline would move gas from the Dauletabad gas field to consumers in Pakistan and India after transiting Afghanistan.

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The Asian Development Bank financed a feasibility study for TAPI in 2005 despite the ongoing war in Afghanistan.

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