The Afghan government has completed the first phase of a project to dig the Khoshteba Canal to supply water to three northern provinces across the Amu River, a project that worries Central Asian countries that fear their water shares will decline.
The total cost of the project is estimated at $ 360 million, employing about 5,4 workers, using 14,<> trucks and machinery, and a <>-hour working day, with the aim of increasing the agricultural area in northern Afghanistan.
According to project manager Hamidullah Dhahein, when completed, the project will ensure the country's food self-sufficiency.
The canal makes its way through the Amu River, which is called Gihon Arabic, the longest river in Central Asia, originating high in the Pamir Mountains in Afghanistan's Badakhshan province and separating Afghanistan's borders from Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan.
On this extension, the Khoshteba Water Canal, which was dug from the Goldar area of Balkh province to Hirtan, passing through Jawzjan province, and ending in Faryab province in northern Afghanistan, with the addition of branches to the canal for each province, is built.
Central Asian countries fear that their water shares will decline and reserve the canal project, while the Afghan government believes it gets less than half of its right from the water that originates from its mountains, and that the project will return the other half to Afghanistan.
"The Amu River is shared by Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, and we have a fundamental right to it, and we are able to benefit from it without having to refer to others," said Abdul Rahman al-Attash, head of the National Development Corporation in Afghanistan.