Ashgabat, 29 August 2016 (nCa) — “The situation is normal at the Turkmen-Afghan border,” said Dr. T V Nagendra Prasad, the ambassador of India in Turkmenistan.
He was part of a small group of diplomat who visited the Turkmen-Afghan border recently in a trip organized by the foreign office of Turkmenistan. They visited two border towns: Serhetabat (formerly Kushka) and Takhtabazar.
Quashing the persistent rumours of unrest and border incursions, Dr. Prasad said that he found no signs of disturbance or tension in the border towns or the actual borders they visited.
Here is the gist of the exclusive conversation of Dr. Prasad with nCa:
We visited Serhetabat and Takhtabazar recently and we saw no extraordinary security measures, clearly indicating that there is no source of concern for the Turkmen authorities at their borders with Afghanistan.
We saw the border monitoring station, which is a hi-tech system to gather and interpret the border situation reports in real-time.
During our visit we were taken right up to the border where we could see an Afghan village across the border. The border was lightly manned, suggesting peaceful conditions. We did not see any heavy military hardware or army contingents at the border.
The overall impression we got was that Turkmenistan is in full control of its borders and the border security service is doing its job well. We did not observe any signs of concern. /// nCa