DUSHANBE, April 4, Asia-Plus — “As we see, the situation on the Tajik-Afghan border has not changed considerably over the past two years, after Russian border guards quitted troops the border,” Nikolai Bardyuzha, secretary general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), remarked in an interview with Asia-Plus.
“We have left all infrastructures necessary for patrolling the border and the situation on this border remains stable,” Bardyuzha said.
Bardyuzha stressed that there ought not to question professionalism of Tajik border troops because. “Tajik nationals had constituted 80 percent of a 12,000 contingent of Russian border service’s directorate that had been stationed on Tajik-Afghan border,” the CSTO secretary general said.
However, Tajikistan does not have enough potential to maintain its border troop as Russia has, according to him. “Some 30 percent of the Russian border service’s budget had gone to maintaining our directorate in Tajikistan,” he said, noting that it is necessary to provide both financial and technical assistance to the Tajik border directorate.
According to him, not only Russia but also all member nations of the CSTO should provide such assistance proceeding from the fact that “the situation on the Tajik-Afghan border poses threat not only to Tajikistan but also to Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Belarus because one or other amount of drugs is being transported through all these states,” Bardyuzha said.
We will recall that under the bilateral agreement that was signed on October 16, 2004, an operational group of the Federal Security Service stays in Tajikistan to perform advisory functions, provide assistance to Tajik border guards in the effective border patrolling and training of the young generation of border guards.
CSTO members – Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan – use the organization as a platform for fighting drug trafficking, terrorism, and organized crime, and have pledged to provide immediate military assistance to each other in the event of an attack. The bloc has a Collective Rapid Reaction Force deployed in Central Asia.
