Afghanistan’s Quest For Water Worries Central Asian Neighbors

Recently, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported the progress of Afghanistan’s Qosh Tepa Irrigation Canal, $670 million, 285-kilometer canal to irrigate 550,000 hectares of land by diverting 25% of the flow of the Amu Darya River.  Irrigating northern Afghanistan has been a priority for Kabul since Afghanistan’s first president, Mohammad Daud Khan, planned the canal in the 1970s. The Amu Darya, which is Afghanistan’s border with Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan, originates in the Hindu Kush and Wakhan in the Pamir…