India-Turkmenistan Relations Explained

India-Turkmenistan relations are the bilateral ties between the Republic of India and Turkmenistan, a gas-rich and constitutionally neutral Central Asian state, built mainly around energy cooperation through the long-planned TAPI (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India) gas pipeline, along with connectivity, trade, capacity building and cultural exchange. The two countries established diplomatic relations in the early 1990s, soon after Turkmenistan became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Although the relationship is smaller in trade value than India’s ties with Kazakhstan or Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan matters to New Delhi because of its very large natural gas reserves and its position on prospective transport routes between South Asia, Iran and Central Asia. This explainer sets out how the relationship developed, what TAPI is and why it has moved slowly, how connectivity projects fit in, and what could change the picture. It was last reviewed on 17 October 2026.

Key Takeaways

• India-Turkmenistan relations rest mainly on the TAPI gas pipeline, a roughly 1,800 km project meant to carry Turkmen gas through Afghanistan and Pakistan to India.
• Turkmenistan has one of the world’s largest natural gas reserves, centred on the Galkynysh field, which is the planned source for TAPI.
• India set out its Central Asia approach in the Connect Central Asia policy of 2012 and gave it a leader-level format through the first India-Central Asia Summit in January 2022.
• Turkmenistan follows a policy of permanent neutrality recognised by the United Nations in 1995, so it joins few military or political blocs.
• Bilateral trade between India and Turkmenistan is small, and the relationship is valued more for energy and connectivity potential than for current commerce.
• Progress on TAPI depends on security in Afghanistan, India-Pakistan relations, financing and commercial terms, which is why the project has advanced in stages rather than all at once.

How did India-Turkmenistan relations begin?

India-Turkmenistan relations began after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991, when India recognised Turkmenistan as an independent state and the two governments moved to establish formal diplomatic ties. India opened an embassy in Ashgabat in the mid-1990s, and Turkmenistan later established its own diplomatic presence in New Delhi.

The early years were shaped by a shared history of Cold War-era contacts between India and the Soviet Union, which meant that Indian officials, engineers and students already had some familiarity with Soviet Central Asia. Turkmenistan’s first President, Saparmurat Niyazov, adopted a distinctive foreign policy built on neutrality and self-reliance, and he paid visits to India during the 1990s, as later Turkmen leaders also did.

The relationship stayed relatively quiet for roughly two decades. India’s economic rise, its growing energy needs and a more active outreach to Central Asia from about 2012 gave the ties a sharper focus. A visit by India’s Prime Minister to Ashgabat in July 2015, as part of a tour of five Central Asian countries, was a high point in this phase and signalled that Turkmenistan was part of India’s wider regional thinking.

What is the TAPI pipeline and why does it matter to India?

The TAPI pipeline is a planned natural gas pipeline of about 1,800 km that would carry gas from Turkmenistan’s Galkynysh field through Afghanistan and Pakistan to the Indian border town of Fazilka in Punjab. It matters to India because it would offer a pipeline source of gas from Central Asia and diversify India’s energy supply, which today relies heavily on imported liquefied natural gas (LNG) and on Gulf suppliers.

The planned capacity is about 33 billion cubic metres a year. Under the commonly cited allocation, India and Pakistan would each take around 14 billion cubic metres a year and Afghanistan around 5 billion cubic metres, though the exact commercial terms have been negotiated over many years and are not fully public. Indian participation has been led by state-owned companies, with GAIL (India) Limited prominently involved.

Key features of the TAPI project

• Source: the Galkynysh gas field in southern Turkmenistan, which is among the largest gas fields in the world by reserves.
• Route: from Turkmenistan to Herat and Kandahar in Afghanistan, then through Quetta and Multan in Pakistan, ending at Fazilka in India.
• Special-purpose company: TAPI Pipeline Company Limited (TPCL), in which Turkmenistan’s state gas company holds the lead role.
• Advisory role: the Asian Development Bank (ADB) acted as transaction advisor during the project’s development.

How has the TAPI project progressed?

The TAPI project has progressed slowly since the 1990s, moving from feasibility studies to a signed Intergovernmental Agreement in December 2010 and a physical start of construction in Turkmenistan in December 2015. The idea itself dates back to the 1990s, when earlier proposals involving a commercial consortium did not reach completion.

In 2010, the four governments signed the Intergovernmental Agreement and gas pipeline framework agreements in Ashgabat, creating the legal basis for the project. A ground-breaking ceremony in Turkmenistan’s Mary region in December 2015 marked the start of work on the Turkmen section. Work on the Afghan stretch, beginning near Herat, was publicly launched in 2018. Reports since then have described progress in Turkmenistan and early works in Afghanistan, while the sections in Pakistan and India have received less public attention.

Readers should treat any statement about completion dates with caution. Official timelines have been revised several times, and the project’s actual physical status can change from year to year.

What are the main obstacles to TAPI?

The main obstacles to TAPI are security risks along the Afghan and Pakistani sections, the strained political relationship between India and Pakistan, the question of who finances and owns the pipeline, and commercial terms such as price and transit fees. None of these challenges has a simple technical solution.

• Security: the planned route passes through southern Afghan provinces and Pakistan’s Balochistan region, which have faced insecurity in different periods.
• Politics: a pipeline that crosses between India and Pakistan requires both governments to accept dependence on a shared transit arrangement, which is sensitive given their long-running disputes.
• Financing: large investors and international lenders have been cautious about a project with such concentrated risks, and the cost has been estimated at roughly US$ 7 billion to US$ 10 billion in different reports.
• Change in Afghanistan: the Taliban takeover in August 2021 changed the political environment. The new authorities have expressed support for the project, but international engagement with them remains limited and complicated.

How does Turkmenistan fit into India’s Central Asia policy?

Turkmenistan fits into India’s Central Asia policy as one of five Central Asian partners, alongside Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, covered by the Connect Central Asia policy that India announced in June 2012. The policy brought together political, economic, security and cultural cooperation under a single frame, with a special emphasis on energy and connectivity.

The framework has since gained structure. A foreign ministers’ India-Central Asia Dialogue began in 2019, and the first India-Central Asia Summit was held in a virtual format in January 2022, with leaders of all five Central Asian countries taking part. The leaders agreed to hold the summit every two years and issued the Delhi Declaration, which set out shared aims on connectivity, trade, counter-terrorism and development cooperation. A permanent secretariat in India for the format was also discussed.

Within this framework, Turkmenistan is distinct. It is not a member of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), of which India has been a member since 2017, and it has historically been cautious about joining groupings. India therefore engages Turkmenistan more through bilateral channels and through specific projects than through multilateral platforms.

What roles do Chabahar and the INSTC play?

Chabahar port in Iran and the International North-South Transport Corridor (INSTC) play a supporting role by offering India potential trade routes towards Central Asia that avoid overland passage through Pakistan. India has invested in a terminal at Chabahar through India Ports Global Limited (IPGL), and a long-term operating contract was signed in 2024.

Turkmenistan lies on the eastern side of these corridor concepts. A railway link running from Kazakhstan through Turkmenistan to Iran, opened in the middle of the 2010s, created an alternative rail path that joins up with Iranian ports. India’s accession to the Ashgabat Agreement in 2018, a multimodal transport agreement involving Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran, Oman, Kazakhstan and others, was intended to let Indian cargo use these networks.

The practical use of these routes depends on Iranian port capacity, sanctions-related uncertainty, customs procedures and the commercial cost of multimodal shipping. Proponents argue they can cut transit time and cost relative to long sea routes, but Indian trade through them has remained modest so far.

How much trade is there between India and Turkmenistan?

India-Turkmenistan trade is small, typically reported at tens of millions of US dollars a year, which places it well below India’s commerce with larger Central Asian economies. Figures vary by year and source, so they are best treated as approximate.

India has generally exported pharmaceuticals, medical products, tea, machinery and a range of consumer goods to Turkmenistan. Imports from Turkmenistan have included cotton and textile-related products and some chemicals. Two structural factors hold trade back: Turkmenistan’s state-dominated economy and relatively restricted business environment, and the lack of a direct land route between the two countries.

What other areas of cooperation exist?

Other areas of cooperation between India and Turkmenistan include capacity building and education, pharmaceuticals and healthcare, information technology, culture and defence-related dialogue. These are modest but regular parts of the relationship.

• Capacity building: Turkmen officials and professionals have attended Indian training programmes under the Indian Technical and Economic Cooperation (ITEC) scheme, and scholarships have been offered through the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR).
• Healthcare and pharma: Indian generic medicines are supplied to Turkmenistan, and healthcare cooperation has been discussed at various official meetings.
• Information technology: India has supported IT and language-training initiatives in several Central Asian states, and similar proposals have been raised with Turkmenistan.
• Culture: Indian films, yoga and classical dance are popular in Central Asia, and Turkmenistan has hosted cultural events organised with Indian support.
• Institutional dialogue: the two sides have used a Joint Working Group on TAPI and other consultations between foreign offices to keep contacts regular.

Why does Turkmenistan’s neutrality shape the relationship?

Turkmenistan’s neutrality shapes the relationship because the country has pursued a policy of permanent neutrality since 1995, when the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution recognising it. As a result, Turkmenistan avoids military alliances and is cautious about multilateral groupings, which keeps its engagement with India largely bilateral and project-based.

Neutrality has practical consequences. Turkmenistan does not join defence blocs, and its security cooperation with India is limited compared with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan or Tajikistan. At the same time, neutrality makes Turkmenistan a relatively predictable commercial partner that is not tied to any camp, and India has described it as a country to engage on the basis of mutual interest rather than alignment.

Turkmenistan’s export picture also matters. A large share of its gas goes to China through the Central Asia-China pipeline, which opened in 2009, so TAPI is partly a diversification project for Ashgabat as well as an import project for India.

What are the key milestones in India-Turkmenistan relations?

The key milestones in India-Turkmenistan relations run from the early 1990s establishment of ties to the launch of Central Asian summit diplomacy in 2022. The table below summarises the main dates.

What are the main challenges in India-Turkmenistan relations?

The main challenges in India-Turkmenistan relations are physical distance without a direct route, Turkmenistan’s closed and state-led economic model, and the dependence of the headline project on the stability of third countries. These factors keep the relationship below its stated potential.

India also has to compete for attention in Central Asia with larger and closer partners. China has a major presence through energy purchases, pipelines and infrastructure investment, and Russia retains strong historical and security links. Turkey, Iran and Gulf states are also active. India’s advantages include its soft power, its pharmaceutical and IT sectors, and the absence of a contentious political agenda, but its economic footprint in the region remains smaller.

A further challenge is regional geography. India cannot reach Turkmenistan directly overland without crossing Pakistan and Afghanistan, so every proposal either relies on those countries or uses longer maritime and multimodal routes through Iran.

What is the outlook for India-Turkmenistan relations?

The outlook for India-Turkmenistan relations is one of steady, incremental engagement, with the pace set largely by developments in TAPI, Afghanistan and the Iran-based corridors. Analysts generally expect diplomatic contact to continue through the India-Central Asia Summit and Dialogue formats even when large projects stall.

Several developments would change the trajectory: confirmed construction across Afghanistan and Pakistan, stable arrangements for Chabahar, or new energy deals such as LNG or swap arrangements. Conversely, renewed instability or sanctions-related disruption would reduce the importance of the connectivity pillar. In the near term, capacity building, cultural exchange and regular political consultation remain the most reliable parts of the relationship.

Bottom Line

India-Turkmenistan relations are cordial, long-standing and driven more by potential than by present volume, with the TAPI gas pipeline as the central idea. The relationship will most likely continue to grow in steps, shaped by regional security, connectivity through Iran and the wider India-Central Asia framework.

Frequently Asked Questions

What are India-Turkmenistan relations based on?

India-Turkmenistan relations are based mainly on energy cooperation, connectivity and diplomatic engagement within India’s Central Asia policy. The TAPI gas pipeline is the best-known project, while capacity building, pharmaceuticals and cultural exchange add smaller but steady links.

What is the TAPI pipeline?

The TAPI pipeline is a planned gas pipeline of about 1,800 km running from Turkmenistan through Afghanistan and Pakistan to India. It is designed to carry roughly 33 billion cubic metres of gas a year from the Galkynysh field, and construction has proceeded in stages since 2015.

Has the TAPI pipeline been completed?

No, the TAPI pipeline has not been reported as fully completed. Construction began in Turkmenistan in 2015 and the Afghan section was launched in 2018, but security conditions, financing and India-Pakistan relations have slowed the full route, so readers should check current official updates.

How much trade is there between India and Turkmenistan?

Trade between India and Turkmenistan is small, usually estimated at tens of millions of US dollars a year. India mainly exports pharmaceuticals, tea and manufactured goods, while the lack of a direct route and Turkmenistan’s state-led economy limit growth.

Is Turkmenistan part of the India-Central Asia Summit?

Yes, Turkmenistan is one of the five Central Asian countries in the India-Central Asia Summit format, together with Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. The first summit was held virtually in January 2022 and produced the Delhi Declaration on cooperation.

Why is Turkmenistan important to India?

Turkmenistan is important to India because it holds some of the world’s largest natural gas reserves and lies on potential transport routes between South Asia, Iran and Central Asia. Its neutrality also makes it a stable, non-aligned partner for projects such as TAPI.

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