Uzbekistan, Afghanistan Plan to Discuss Qosh Tepa Canal

The ambitious Qosh Tepa Canal project, which is raising serious questions about the region's water security, is set to be discussed in Afghanistan, according to Uzbek officials, who have announced that a government delegation will visit Afghanistan in the coming months.

The negotiations could happen before the end of the year, according to Ulugbek Kosimov, governor of Uzbekistan's Surkhandaryo region, reports Uzbek media on Thursday.

Although the canal is being built from the border with Tajikistan, not Uzbekistan's, Khokim said that it would affect all Central Asian nations.

The Taliban-run administration in Kabul is reportedly about to begin construction of the second phase of the Qosh Tepa Canal, which Afghan officials have hailed as a means of ensuring the country's own agricultural needs.

Speaking at a ceremony celebrating the expected commencement of the second phase of Qosh Tepa last week, Sher Mohammad Abbas Stanikzai, deputy foreign minister in the Taliban government, reassured neighbouring countries regarding the path of the Amu Darya River, from which water for the Qosh Tepa is to be obtained.

Stanikzai further told the media, “If our neighbours have worries in this regard, we are ready to contact them through diplomatic channels”.

The Afghan Armed Forces would resolutely oppose any violent attempts to thwart the initiative, according to Afghanistan's Defence Minister Mawlawi Mohammad Yaqoob Mujahid.

“All of us, especially the national and Islamic armies of the Defence Ministry are behind the implantation of such projects, and they will support it with all their power”, said Mujahid.

President Shavkat Mirziyoyev of Uzbekistan urged fellow Central Asian leaders to present a united front in addressing the canal in mid-September.

During a conference of world leaders in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, Mirziyoyev warned that the opening of Qosh Tepa "could fundamentally alter the water regime and balance in Central Asia".

"We consider it essential to establish a joint working group to investigate all facets of the Qosh Tepa Canal's construction and its impact on the Amu Darya's water regime", he added.

Two years after seizing control of Afghanistan, the Taliban is in charge of the 115-mile Qosh Tepa Canal, a huge infrastructural undertaking that would channel 20% of the water from the Amu Darya River across the desert plains of northern Afghanistan.

After the canal has been constructed, which is planned to be in two years, it could irrigate 550,000 hectares (more than 2,100 square miles) of the desert, effectively increasing Afghanistan's arable land by a third and even bringing the nation back to self-sufficiency in food production for the first time since the 1980s, according to Afghan officials.

Mohammed Daoud Khan, the first Afghan president, initially conceived the concept for the canal project in the 1970s, and Ashraf Ghani, the last one, was ultimately responsible for launching construction in 2021.

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