DUSHANBE, November 26, Asia-Plus — State and prospects of further expansion of bilateral cooperation between Tajikistan and the Russian Federation were the focus of talks of President Emomali Rahmon with the head of Russian president’s office, Sergey Naryshkin, who arrived in Dushanbe on a working visit yesterday evening.
Following his meeting with President Rahmon, Sergey Naryshkin told reporters that they had discussed the progress of implementation of agreements reached between Tajikistan and Russia and economic cooperation had been a major topic of the talks. He noted that trade between Russia and Tajikistan has been increasing by some 30-40 percent form year to year.
According to him, they also discussed the progress of implementation of the Sangtuda-1 hydroelectricity project. Reminding that the Sangtuda-1 would be fully introduced into operation station at the beginning of the next year, the Russian official noted that construction work was running ahead of schedule.
The Russian official noted that expansion of humanitarian and scientific cooperation was also of mutual interest of the two countries. “The branch of Moscow State University is planned to be opened here next year,” said Naryshkin, “A large group of Russian researchers have already visited Tajikistan to get acquainted with local conditions and selected a group of future students to study at Moscow University’s branch in Dushanbe.”
The two also touched upon issues related to military-political cooperation within the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and functioning of Russian military base in Tajikistan.
Asked about the possibility of participation of Russia in the project for completion of the construction of the Roghun hydroelectric power station (HPS) in Tajikistan, Naryshkin said that that issue had been touched upon at his meeting with President Rahmon. “Working groups have been set up for consideration of this issue and study of this issue is under way,” he said.
