Task Force on Regional Electricity Cooperation in Central and South Asia

18 November 2007: Kabul

Six countries from Central and South Asia have held the first meeting of a Task Force on Regional Electricity Cooperation at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in Kabul on 18 November. The meeting was organised by the Energy Charter Secretariat and the Government of Afghanistan, with financial assistance from the Government of Norway.

The meeting was opened by the First Vice President of Afghanistan, H.E. Mr Ahmad Zia Massoud, who underlined the importance of establishing links in the power sector between economies with high energy demand in South Asia and the energy-rich countries of Central Asia, based on the shared interest in bringing prosperity to the people of the region.

Delegations from Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan agreed a declaration (the ‘Kabul Declaration on Promoting Regional Electricity Cooperation between Central and South Asia’) in which they resolved to work towards a joint understanding of the legal and technical framework for regional power trade, based on the principles of the Energy Charter and the provisions of the Energy Charter Treaty.

They also proposed that the Energy Charter’s Model Agreements, currently developed for cross-border oil and gas pipelines, should be adapted to provide a basis for cross-border electricity projects. This proposal will be on the agenda of the Energy Charter Conference, the Charter’s governing body, at its forthcoming meeting in Istanbul on 7 December.

The Istanbul Conference will also be considering a request from Afghanistan for accession to the 1994 Energy Charter Treaty. Afghanistan became an observer to the Energy Charter in November 2006, and the same meeting of the Charter Conference approved a request from Pakistan to accede to the Treaty. The other participants in the Kabul meeting, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, are all full Contracting Parties to the Treaty.

The Kabul meeting follows on from an initial high-level workshop that took place in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan in April 2007. The next meeting of the Task Force is scheduled to take place in Dushanbe, Tajikistan in spring 2008.

Source: Energy Charter