AKIPRESS.COM - External Affairs Minister of India Sushma Swaraj on Wednesday discussed with Turkmenistan President Gurbanguly Berdymuhamedov key bilateral and regional issues, including defence cooperation and progress on the ambitious USD $10 billion TAPI gas pipeline project, Indian media report.

Swaraj, who arrived in Ashgabat yesterday for a three-day trip to co-chair the fifth India-Turkmenistan Inter-Governmental Joint Commission on Trade, Economic, Scientific and Technological Cooperation with her Turkmen counterpart Rashid Meredov, called on Berdymuhamedov at the presidential palace, reports ZeeNews.

"I had a very productive meeting with the honourable president. We talked about bilateral relations all pervasive and all important issues. We talked about defence cooperation and the fertiliser plant," Swaraj told reporters after the over 50 minute-long meeting.

An Indian delegation is currently Turkmenistan to explore possibilities of setting up the plant.

"We talked about cultural relations and both of us were saying that Turkmenistan and India share cultural and historical linkages. I think with this meeting the relationship will be deeper and stronger," Swaraj said.

"The President also apprised us about the progress in the TAPI project and I told his excellency that this has been possible only because of his personal intervention," she said.

The Turkmenistan?Afghanistan?Pakistan?India (TAPI) gas project is a 1,680-km pipeline with design capacity to supply 3.2 billion cubic feet of natural gas per annum from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

TAPI will carry gas from Turkmenistan's Galkynysh field that holds gas reserves of 16 trillion cubic feet. From the field, the pipeline will run to Herat and Kandahar province of Afghanistan, before entering Pakistan. In Pakistan, it will reach Multan via Quetta before ending at Fazilka in Punjab in India.