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TAPI Pipeline talks hit a wall as Pakistan boycotts

Aug 23, 2013 Pakistan has decided to boycott the 22 August talks about the TAPI (Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India) pipeline project. This comes in the wake of violation of the line of control agreement between India and Pakistan. Both sides have launched attacks at each other during the last few weeks resulting in several casualties on both sides of the border. The on-going peace process between both India and Pakistan has, as a result of this border confrontation, come to a halt. The TAPI pipeline runs from Turkmenistan through the war plagued Afghanistan to Pakistan and end at India.Turkmenistan holds the fourth largest reserves of natural gas and the pipeline is supposed to supply natural gas to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India. Analysts believe this project would cost between 10 to 12 billion dollars. This project was designed mainly due to pressure from U.S who opposes the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline due to Iran