DUSHANBE, December 9, Asia-Plus — Tajik President Emomali Rahmon today morning left for Ashgabat on a three-day official visit, Tajik MFA said.
On arrival in Ashgabat, President Rahmon will hold talks with his Turkmen counterpart, President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov. The meeting is dedicated to consolidate agreements reached before and outline priorities of mutually beneficial cooperation between Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
The meeting of the leaders of the two countries will be followed by Tajik-Turkmen negotiations in the enlarged format, which are expected to result in signing of a number of cooperation documents.
The documents include three government-to-government agreements on mutual protection of secret information, aerial communication, and international automotive transport communication, as well as convention on avoiding double taxation and mutual protection of investments.
Besides, Rahmon and Berdymukhammedov will ink a joint Tajik-Turkmen communiqué.
On Monday, President Rahmon will attend an official opening of the UN Regional Center for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia in Ashgabat.
The United Nations” Regional Center for Preventive Diplomacy for Central Asia (UNRCCA) aims to assist regional governments in working together to tackle common challenges such as terrorism, drug trafficking, organized crime and environmental degradation. UNRCCA, a joint initiative by the world body and all five central Asian countries — Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan — is to be inaugurated in Ashgabat on Monday at the start of a two-day conference on international cooperation in preventive diplomacy and conflict resolution.
UNRCCA, which is to be headed by a senior representative of the UN secretary general, will have an initial budget of 2.3 million dollars (1.6 million euros) and a small international staff
The source at the Ministry of Transport and Communications (MoTC) said the agreement on the international automotive transport communication aims to ease and simplify a procedure of transportation and introduction of licensing forms system. According to him, Tajikistan is elaborating similar draft agreements on international automotive transport communication with other countries as well. The daft agreement on automotive transport communication with Uzbekistan has already been submitted for consideration to Uzbek authorities.
As far as the aerial communication between Tajikistan and Turkmenistan is concerned, the aerial communication between Dushanbe and Ashgabat functioned from 1993 to 1997. In 1997, the aerial communication between the two countries was cut off because of low passenger traffic and introduction by Turkmenistan of visa regime for citizens of the CIS states, the source said.
We will recall that Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov paid an official visit to Tajikistan in early October this year. Rahmon and Berdymukhammedov that time endorsed a new five-year agreement reached in talks between the energy ministers of Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan on the supply and transit of Turkmen electricity through Uzbekistan to Tajikistan during winter months.
Turkmen president’s visit to Tajikistan ended with signing of six bilateral cooperation documents, including an agreement on friendship and cooperation, as well as government-to-government agreements on main principles of trade-economic and scientific-technical cooperation, cooperation in the filed of culture and art, education cooperation, mutual protection of investments, and agriculture cooperation.
According to data of the State Committee for Statistics, a two-way trade between Tajikistan and Turkmenistan in January-October 2007 has valued at US$37.7 million. This consisted of Tajikistan’s exports to Turkmenistan estimated at US$4.2 million and Tajikistan’s imports from Turkmenistan worth US$33.5 million.
