Central Asia gas pipeline talks revived

KABUL, Afghanistan (CNN) -- New talks have begun on the construction of a natural gas pipeline from Central Asia to the Arabian Sea, with officials from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkmenistan pledging to move forward on the long-delayed project.

"We're very hopeful about the future," Joma Mohammad Mohammadi, Afghanistan's minister of mines and industry, said Monday.

"The people and the government of Afghanistan is very determined to bring peace. We're all living with hope and determination to improve the situation in the country and make insecurity something of the past."

Representatives of the three countries met in Kabul on Monday to sign the framework for a feasibility study for the project.

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Officials are expected to meet again next month in Turkmenistan to work out how they will cooperate on the project once that study is complete.

The planned pipeline would stretch nearly 2,400 km (1,500 miles) and connect natural gas fields in Turkmenistan with the industrial city of Multan, in central Pakistan.

Earlier plans foundered amid the Afghan civil war and following the U.S. missile strikes on al Qaeda bases in Afghanistan in 1998, but have been resurrected since the fall of Afghanistan's Taliban government last year.

"All three countries are strongly committed to make all possible efforts for the success of the project, and we look forward to receiving the feasibility study," Mohammadi said.

"We very much hope that the study will show the project feasible, and once that is determined, we do not have much concern about how to finance it and how to construct it and how to manage it. It looks like all those matters are under control," he said.

-- CNN Producer Vivian Paulsen contributed to this report.