DUSHANBE, February 2, 2009, Asia-Plus – The February 1 item of Ferghana.ru titled “Tajik President to Stay Away From Csto, Eurasec Summits” said, “Tajik President Emomali Rahmon would not attend planned summits in Moscow next week of two key associations of former Soviet republics, the Tajik Foreign Ministry said on Saturday, claiming the reason was the current energy crisis in his country while it was rumored that the true reason were allegedly strained Tajik-Russian relations.”
The summits of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and Eurasian Economic Community (EEAC) are sent for February 4.
According to Ferghana.ru, Rahmon has not missed a single summit of the CSTO, EAEC, the CIS, or the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) since he became president in 1992.
“Rahmon will not leave Tajikistan because of the current situation caused by the energy crisis,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Davlat Nazri told Interfax. “All the visits that were scheduled for the first ten days of February have been put off.”
The Tajik and Russian press said in the past few days, however, that relations between Tajikistan and Russia have soured. The reason for the rumored rift were statements by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev during a visit to Uzbekistan last week. Medvedev was commenting on the use of the water resources of cross-border rivers, Ferghana.ru said.
Neither the Tajik Foreign Ministry nor the Russian Embassy in Tajikistan have commented on the rumors, while officials have denied that any rift has emerged in what the two countries have always seen as a strategic mutual relationship.
Kamil Magomedov, Press Attaché, the Russian Embassy in Dushanbe, told Interfax the embassy had “received no notification, either oral or written, about the Tajik president canceling his visit.”
Tajikistan introduced restrictions on energy consumption on January 27. The population of Dushanbe is supplied with electricity for 15 hours a day while the other Tajik cities receive electricity for three hours at most.
The Tajik government accuses neighboring Uzbekistan of refusing to transmit electricity to Tajikistan from Turkmenistan for political reasons. Uzbekistan has made no comment.
Tajikistan”s largest generating facility, the Norak hydropower plant, is expected to come to a standstill between February 10 and February 12 as last year”s dry summer has made it impossible to accumulate enough water in its reservoir to keep it going.
Tajikistan”s Foreign Ministry said a while ago that, after attending the planned CSTO and EAEC summits, Rahmon was going to make his first tour of the Baltic countries and visit Brussels for talks on the transit of nonmilitary NATO cargo to Afghanistan.
