ISLAMABAD, May 8: Afghanistan on Monday agreed to allow export of electricity from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzystan to Pakistan on the condition that it was paid a transit fee and the transmission line went through Kabul and not through the Wakhan corridor.

When Tajikistan and Kyrgyz republic confirmed their ability to make available about 4,000-megawatt of hydroelectricity to Pakistan and Afghanistan in summer, international lenders showed keen interest to finance the regional electricity trade project.

On the first day of a two-day energy ministers conference, the international lender community, including the World Bank, the USAID, the Asian Development Bank, Islamic Development Bank and the International Finance Corporation, also supported the regional electricity connectivity through Afghanistan while a couple of US and Russia-based power companies also showed interest in taking part in the project.

Federal Minister for Water and Power Liaqat Ali Jatoi presided over the conference while Tajik deputy prime minister Assadullo Ghulomov, advisor to the Kyrgyz prime minister Mr Omorov Janybek and Afghan Deputy Minister Mohammad Jalil Shams also attended the conference.

On the sidelines, however, the World Bank declined to comment if it would support other regional energy cooperation projects like Iran to Pakistan or Iran to India gas pipelines.

“We don’t have an official position on the (IPI gas) pipeline”, Vladislav Vucetic, the World Bank’s lead energy specialist for South Asia Energy and Infrastructure said.

He also declined to comment when asked if the World Bank was presenting electricity trade between central Asia and South Asia as an alternate to Pakistan’s efforts for nuclear energy. “The (World) Bank does not deal with nuclear issue,” he said and added: “We have no comment on Pakistan’s quest for nuclear energy sources.”

Afghanistan’s deputy minister administration Jalil Shams said his country was ready to support electricity export from the central Asian republics to Pakistan and to have a transmission line pass through Afghanistan because transit trade between the two regions would not take place without Afghanistan.

He, however, said Kabul preferred the Kabul route for the transmission line because it was technically more viable, socially more acceptable and more reliable from security perspective than Wakhan route.

He said the Wakhan route was unviable because there was no road access, it remained closed for six months in winter, financially uneconomical because of its length and mountainous terrain and was very vulnerable to sabotage.

He said Afghanistan would support the Kabul route because it would ensure to it sizable wheeling charges and supply electricity to Afghan consumers along the transmission line.

The proposal was also supported by Pakistan. The participants agreed to prepare a project structure and set up an entity comprising officials of the four countries to speed up the project and negotiate other technical and financial arrangements.

They also agreed to chalk out a mechanism to implement a memorandum of understanding (MoU) already signed between Pakistan and Tajikistan for power export of upto 1000-MW to Pakistan. The Kyrgyz representative said his country had a surplus of about 6000 megawatts of which 3,000-MW could be exported in summer.

The conference is expected to issue a joint communique on the future strategy of the project implementation, including creation of a multilateral legal entity and the time table for further negotiations on the subject.