February1 – Deputies of the Majlisi Namoyandagon (Tajikistan’s lower chamber of parliament) endorsed amendments to the country’s administrative code providing for tightening punishment for drunk driving;
– Tajik company, Kamolot-1, has won Gabriel Al-Salem International Award for Excellence in Consulting. The company won the award in the “Consulting Project of the Year” nomination.
February 3 – A handover ceremony of more than $2 million in humanitarian aid donated by American company Eli Lilly and delivered by the U.S. State Department and Project HOPE to the people of Tajikistan took place n Dushanbe;
– Pakistan extradited Tajik national Bakhtiyor Umarov, who is an alleged activist of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), to Tajikistan.
February 6 – Tajik national Yakov Tsoi was released from Afghan prison. Tajik citizens Hasan Otarayev, Shirinbek Iskandarov and Yakov Tsoi who had arrived in Afghanistan for doing business were detained by Afghan special services in the summer of 2008 on suspicion of spying for Tajikistan and Russia. Shirinbek Iskandarov was released last June due to interference of the presidents of Tajikistan and Afghanistan, while 50-year-old national of Tajikistan, Hasan Otarayev, died in the Pul-e-Charkhi prison in October 2011;
– Opportunities of bilateral economic cooperation between Tajikistan and Iran were discussed in Dushanbe at a meeting of Sharif Said, Head of Tajikistan’s Chamber of Commerce and Industry (CCI) with Iran’s marketing and trade delegation, led by Mohammad Samadi, Head of Bejnourd Chamber, Iran’s Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Mining;
– An official opening ceremony of the U.S. Embassy’s first Window to America took place in the Fayzobod district. The Window to America is a collaborative effort between the local government of the district of Fayzobod and the U.S. Embassy;
– Deputy Minister of Economic Development and Trade, Umed Davlatzod met in Dushanbe with Mr. Harry Chan, Management Director, FiF Technologies LLP (Singapore). The two discussed issues related to attraction of Singaporean investments for development of Tajikistan’s economy. They outlined sectors like transportation, communications, industry, agricultural and banking system, as areas of which could drive the bilateral trade between Tajikistan and Singapore.
February 6-11 – A meeting of the Tajik-Kyrgyz Intergovernmental Commission for Demarcation and Delimitation (ICDD) took place in Dushanbe. The Tajik-Uzbek border is over 1,000 kilometers long, 50 percent of which remain disputed.
February 6-7 – A delegation of Russia’s state-controlled company Gazprom comprising Vsevolod Cherepanov, Head of the Gazprom Gas, Gas Condensate and Oil Production Department, and Valery Gulev, Managing Director of Gazprom International, visited Tajikistan. The Gazprom representatives visited the wildcat well “Shahrinav-1P” at the Sariqamish field and held a number of talks with Tajik state officials to discuss implementation of the Russian-Tajik project aimed at exploring subsurface oil-and-gas prospects in Tajikistan developing promising gas fields in Tajikistan and prospects of further expansion of bilateral cooperation.
February 7-9 – High schools across the country were temporarily closed due to cold weather.
February 8 – A presentation ceremony for the project for construction of the Shurob hydroelectric power plant (HPP) on the Vakhsh River took place at the Ministry of Energy and Industries (MoEI). The Shurob HPP with a rated capacity of 862.5 megawatt will be built some 100 kilometers to the east of Dushanbe. The estimated budget for implementation of the project is some one billion U.S. dollars and several countries, including China and Iran, have announced their intention to participate in the construction of the Shurob HPP.
February 9 – Parliamentary hearings on energy and the provision of the population with the coal took place in Dushanbe. The meeting participants, in particular, discussed the draft law on the extraction of the coal;
– Deputy Foreign Minister, Nizomiddin Zohidov, and heads of relevant departments of the Tajik MFA met in Dushanbe with a delegation of China’s MFA, led by Ambassador-at-Large Li Fenglin. The sides discussed state and prospects of further expansion of bilateral cooperation between Tajikistan and China in various fields and exchanged views on the priorities of the bilateral cooperation.
February 10 – Electricity rationing was introduced in Khujand, the administrative center of the northern Sughd province.
February 11 – A Russian-made MI-8 transport helicopter belonging to Air Force of the Ministry of Defence of Tajikistan crashed in Zabul Province of Afghanistan, killing all four onboard. Those killed are crew members. The helicopter had reportedly operated in Afghanistan since May 2011, shipping humanitarian cargo to Afghan mountain areas difficult of access. According to some sources, the helicopter crashed due to bad weather.
February 11-13 – The EU-UNDP Border Management in Central Asia (BOMCA) Program jointly with the International Center for Migration Policy Development (ICMPD) organized the National Workshop on Integrated Border Management (IBM), Border Control Procedures, Risk Analysis and Assessment. Twenty participants of the workshop, staff of the border check points and units from different areas of Tajikistan together with international experts and BOMCA representatives discussed IBM concept, existing agreements between neighboring countries on cooperation between police forces, trilateral center for sharing information to prevent border violations and border control procedures.
February 13 – General William M. Fraser III, Commander of U.S. Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM), made his first visit to Tajikistan. While in Dushanbe, General Fraser met with Colonel-General Sherali Khairulloyev, Minister of Defense for the Republic of Tajikistan and Lieutenant-General Sherali Mirzo, Head of the Border Guard Administration. General Fraser formally introduced himself and personally thanked them for Tajikistan’s continued support and cooperation;
– Kazakh national Ruslan Bogatyryov, 53, was detained with 10 kilograms of heroin in the Tajik northern Sughd province.
February 14 – Tajik President Emomali Rahmon received the World Bank Director for Strategy and Operations for the Europe and Central Asia Region, Mr. Theodore Ahlers, and the World Bank Regional Director for Central Asia, Mr. Saroj Kumar Jha. The sides discussed issues related to state and prospects of further expansion of cooperation between Tajikistan and the World Bank;
The World Bank Board of Executive Directors approved additional financing of 18 million U.S. dollars for the Energy Loss Reduction Project in Tajikistan;
U.S. Ambassador to Tajikistan Ken Gross and Tajik Minister of Culture Mirzoshohrukh Asrori gave public remarks at a ceremony in honor of the newly published Tajikistan Historical Sites Catalog.
February 14-15 – A two-day conference entitled “Assessing the Integrity in Water Sector of the Republic of Tajikistan” was held in Dushanbe.
February 15 – Tajik Foreign Minister Hamrokhon Zarifi met in Dushanbe with Hisham Taleb Maruf, Head of the Regional Office of the Islamic Development Bank (IsDB) in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The sides discussed issues related to state and prospects of further expansion of bilateral cooperation between Tajikistan and IsDB.
February 16 – The Swiss Cooperation Office in Tajikistan and the public organization League of Women Lawyers signed an agreement on “Involvement of Government and Society to abolish Death Penalty in Tajikistan.”
February 17 – The trail of Abdurahmon Dodov, an investigator with the police station in Dushanbe’s Shohmansour district, charged over the death of a detainee, began in a court of Dushanbe’s Shohmansour district. Officers from the police station in Dushanbe”s Shohmansour district arrested Bahromiddin Shodiyev on October 19, 2011 on suspicion of theft. The following day, he was taken comatose to the National Medical Center, where he underwent surgery. He died 10 days later.
February 20-22 – A three-day meeting of the Tajik-Uzbek Intergovernmental Commission for Demarcation and Delimitation, which is co-chaired by Tajik Security Council Secretary Abdurahim Qahhorov and Uzbek Vice-Premier Rustam Azimov, took place in Dushanbe. The sides discussed issues related to demarcation and delimitation of the common border. The delegations reportedly agreed to consider a draft agreement on final delineation of the border. The Tajik-Uzbek border is over 1,200 kilometers long, 16 percent of which remain disputed.
February 21 – One person was killed as an avalanche buried a heavy truck KAMAZ on the highway connecting Dushanbe and northern Tajikistan;
– An international conference entitled “Development of Islam in Central Asia: New Trends, Problems and Solutions to Them” took place in Dushanbe. Organized by Media Group “Asia-Plus,” IslamNews.tj Project and the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, the conference discussed the role of Islam in the modern Tajik society and in the future of the country;
– Tajik Cultural Center “Khayyam,” named after a Tajik-Persian polymath: philosopher, mathematician, astronomer and poet, officially opened in Moscow.
February 22 – High-ranking officials from the OSCE and the Tajik government, as well as representatives of civil society met in Dushanbe at an annual forum to identify priorities for national and regional cooperation in 2013;
– Russia’s upper house (Federation Council) ratified the Russian-Tajik agreement on border cooperation issues. This agreement was signed by President Emomali Rahmon and his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev in Dushanbe on September 2, 2011;
– A court in Khatlon’s Qubodiyon district sentenced two local residents — Akmal Rashitov and Ibrohim Qurbonov, who are members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) — to 9 and 8½ years respectively. The sentence followed their conviction on charges of organizing a criminal group and organizing an extremist group;
– A court in Dushanbe’s Ismoili Somoni district rejected claim filed by the Turajonzoda brothers against Saidmukarram Abduqodirzoda, the head of the Council of Ulamo (a group of scholars and imams that provides interpretations of religious practice).
February 22-24 – A three-day conference entitled “Conditions for Iran’s Investment in Tajikistan” took place t the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade.
February 23 – A military parade was held in Dushanbe’s Victory Park On occasion of the 19th anniversary of the formation of the Armed Forces of Tajikistan;
– Seven residents of the northern Sughd province received sentenced of between three and five years for membership in the banned Sunni missionary group Jamaati Tabligh (also known as Jamaat ut-Tabligh or, Propagation Group);
– An accidental use of sodium nitrite instead of table salt in the preparation of food caused the fatal food poisoning in Kulob. An accidental food poisoning resulted in the death of five of the 22 affected persons.
February 27 – Four persons were injured after a grenade exploded in one of residential houses in the village of Tangai in the Vahdat district
February 28 – The second regional meeting of CIS border service heads took place in Dushanbe. A draft decision of the CIS Council of Heads of Government on additional measures to strengthen security on external borders of the CIS nations was the focus of the meeting;
– The first two of six Kazakh-produced locomotives arrived in Dushanbe. Kazakhstan agreed to sell six locomotives to Tajikistan, its first-ever export of railway engines, in November 2011.
February 28-29 – An international conference on Tajik-Afghan border management and cross-border cooperation was held in Dushanbe. Organized by the Embassy of Japan in Dushanbe and the Delegation of the European Union to Tajikistan under support of EU/UNDP BOMCA and BOMNAF Programs, the conference discussed ways to enhance border management and cross-border cooperation between Tajikistan and Afghanistan.
