-Caveat Lector-
From
http://news6.thdo.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/west_asia/newsid_37000/37
021.stm
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Thursday, December 4, 1997 Published at 19:27 GMT
World: West Asia
Taleban in Texas for talks on gas pipeline
The 1,300km pipeline will carry gas across Afghanistan's harsh
terrain
A senior delegation from the Taleban movement in Afghanistan is in
the United States for talks with an international energy company that
wants to construct a gas pipeline from Turkmenistan across
Afghanistan to Pakistan.
A spokesman for the company, Unocal, said the Taleban were expected
to spend several days at the company's headquarters in Sugarland,
Texas.
Unocal says it has agreements both with Turkmenistan to sell its gas
and with Pakistan to buy it.
The Afghan economy has been devasted by 20 years of civil war
But, despite the civil war in Afghanistan, Unocal has been in competition with an
Argentinian firm, Bridas, to actually construct the pipeline.
Last month, the Argentinian firm, Bridas, announced that it was close to signing a
two- billion dollar deal to build the pipeline, which would carry gas 1,300 kilometres
from Turkmenistan to Pakistan, across Afghanistan.
In May, Taleban-controlled radio in Kabul said a visiting delegation from an
Argentinian company had announced that pipeline construction would start "soon".
Kabul
The radio has reported several visits to Kabul by Unocal and Bridas company officials
over the past few months.
A BBC regional correspondent says the proposal to build a pipeline across Afghanistan
is part of an international scramble to profit from developing the rich energy
resources of the Caspian Sea.
With the various Afghan factions still at war, the project has looked from the outside
distinctly unpromising.
Last month the Taleban Minister of Information and Culture, Amir Khan Muttaqi, said
the Taleban had held talks with both American and Argentine-led consortia over transit
rights but that no final agreement had yet been re
ached. He said an official team from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkmenistan should
meet to ensure each country benefited from any deal.
However, Unocal clearly believes it is still in with a chance - to the extent that it
has already begun training potential staff.
It has commissioned the University of Nebraska to teach Afghan men the technical
skills needed for pipeline construction. Nearly 140 people were enrolled last month in
Kandahar and Unocal also plans to hold training cours
es for women in administrative skills.
Women face working restrictions under Taleban rule
Although the Taleban authorities only allow women to work in the health sector,
organisers of the training say they haven't so far raised any objections.
The BBC regional correspondent says the Afghan economy has been devastated by 20 years
of civil war. A deal to go ahead with the pipeline project could give it a
desperately-needed boost.
But peace must be established first -- and that for the moment still seems a distant
prospect.
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