The Taliban announced that Amir Khan Muttaqi, the group's foreign minister, traveled to Herat to meet Turkmenistan's foreign minister.

The press office of the Taliban governor in Herat said that Turkmenistan's foreign minister Raşit Meredow will travel to Herat and hold talks with Amir Khan Muttaqi regarding the TAPI project.

Earlier, the Taliban's Foreign Ministry quoted Murat Amanov, director of Turkmenistan's TAPI Project, as saying that the practical work of the TAPI project will begin soon in Afghanistan.

The Taliban have repeatedly called for the start of the TAPI project over the past three years.

The TAPI project starts in western Turkmenistan and continues through Herat and Kandahar in Afghanistan to Quetta and Multan in Pakistan, and then reaches western India.

The project was inaugurated in December 2015 in Ashgabat, the capital of Turkmenistan, by the former leaders of Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Turkmenistan.

The 1,800-kilometre project worth $10 billion was expected to be completed in 2019, but due to insurgency in Afghanistan, it has so far remained only on paper.