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ISLAMABAD, Dec 24 (AFP) - Pakistani Prime Minister Zafarullah Jamali will visit Ashkhabad this week to sign an agreement for a regional gas pipeline with the leaders of Afghanistan and Turkmenistan, officials said Tuesday.

Jamali is due to leave Thursday to join Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov and Afghan President Hamid Karzai at the December 26-27 trilateral summit, a foreign ministry statement said.

It will be Jamali's first official trip abroad since becoming Pakistan's first civilian premier in three years late last month.

The three leaders will finalise a framework agreement for the construction of the 1,500-kilometre (930-mile), two-billion-dollar gas link from Turkmenistan's Dauletabad fields across Afghanistan to Pakistan.

The framework agreement "would trigger a chain of subsequent agreements between the three countries," the statement said.

On the sidelines the three leaders would also address "the entire range of bilateral regional and international issues of mutual concern, including the situation in Afghanistan (and) Pak-India relations," it said.

The gas deal has been on the table for 20 years and has a long and chequered history.

US energy company Unocal led efforts to build the line, but its plans were scuppered in 1998 when US cruise missiles struck al-Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan.

Howver, since the fall of the Taliban last year, the project has been pushed back onto the energy agenda by regional leaders, who hope it will bring enormous wealth to their impoverished region. 

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