Afghan Foreign Minister Salahuddin Rabbani is expected to arrive in Tajikistan on an official three-day visit on February 15, according to the Tajik MFA information department.
While in Dushanbe, Rabbani will hold talks with his Tajik counterpart Sirojiddin Aslov and Tajik President Emomali Rahmon.
At the beginning of this week, Afghan foreign minister visited Moscow. On Tuesday, he held talks with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
The two sides reportedly discussed a number of a number of topics, including the global challenges such as terrorism and drug trafficking as well as a number of bilateral cooperation matters.
Rabbani noted that Afghanistan was interested in increasing oil imports from Russia. Russia has been Afghanistan's largest supplier of refined petroleum over the years, contributing to roughly half of its imports. However, the value of such imports has been declining due to fall of oil prices with over $580 million in 2012 and just $233 million in 2014.
Afghan FM also praised military and technical cooperation between Afghanistan and Russia. Moscow provides Kabul with needed training and equipment in the fight against terrorism, Rabbani said. He added that the military-technical agreement recently signed by the defense ministers of the two states would "further strengthen military to military cooperation."
The agreement has been reached in December and includes maintenance of Russian hardware adopted by the Afghan armed forces. The Afghan armed forces have Russian helicopters, including Mi-17, as well as old Mi-24s supplied from India.
Salahuddin Rabbani (born May 10, 1971) is an Afghan diplomat and politician who has been Minister of Foreign Affairs of Afghanistan since February 1, 2015. He was Ambassador to Turkey from 2011 to 2012. In April 2012, it was announced that he was to chair the Afghan High Peace Council in its negotiations with the Taliban. Salahuddin's father was Council chairman and Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani.
He was selected as leader of the Jamiat-e Islami political party after the assassination of his father. On January 12, 2015, he was nominated by President Ashraf Ghani as Minister of Foreign Affairs, replacing Ahmad Moqbel Zarar. He was confirmed by the Afghan Parliament on 28 January and was sworn in on February 1, 2015.
