DUSHANBE, October 4, Asia-Plus – I have invited your President Emomali Rahmon to pay an official visit to Tuekmenistan and attend an official opening of the Center for Preventive Diplomacy in Ashgabat, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov remarked at a news conference in Dushanbe on October 4.
Tuekmen leader also called on Tajik entrepreneurs to work in a free economic zone that will be opened in the city of Turkmenbashi.
As it had been reported earlier, six bilateral cooperation documents were signed between Tajikistan and Turkmenistan in Dushanbe today.
Tajik authorities consider a two-day official visit of Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov to the republic as a real breakthrough in Tajik-Turkmen relations, which were actually frozen in the post-Soviet period.
In January-August 2007, a two-way trade between the two countries hardly exceeded 32 million dollars. Turkmenistan ranks sixth in the list of CIS trade partners of Tajikistan. Russia and Kazakhstan are at the head of the list.
This is the first over the whole post-Soviet period official visit of the Turkmen head of state to Tajikistan, while in Soviet times, such visits were made actually every year.
