TAVILDARA, May 25, 2009, Asia-Plus — As long as I live I will take efforts in order that nobody could destabilize the situation in the Rasht Valley, ex-Minister of Emergencies of Tajikistan also former opposition commander Mirzo Ziyoyev said in an exclusive interview with Asia-Plus.
According to him, the situation in the region is currently stable and calm. “I have traveled all over the Tavildara district n recent days, calling on the population not to give way to panic,” Mr. Ziyoyev said.
Besides, he recently met with Deputy Defense Minister Ghayrat Adhamov, who visited the region within the framework of the anti-drug operation, dubbed Poppy 2009.
In the meantime, the anti-drug operation launched in eastern Tajikistan has fueled public fears and reports of the operation have contributed to speculations that the operation is allegedly the government effort to combat activities of armed warlords in the Rasht Valley.
We will recall that some foreign media reported last week that a number of police posts along the way leading to the Rasht Valley had be increased and they attributed that to an appearance of a group of armed people in the area. According to them, those armed persons are, most likely, confederates of Mullo Abdullo, one of the filed commanders of the United Tajik Opposition (UTO), who had controlled the territory of the Darband (currently Nourobod) district during the civil war. Mullo Abdullo’s militant group was believed to be the last illegal armed group in eastern Tajikistan.
Mullo Abdullo did not accept the ceasefire agreement signed during inter-Tajik negotiations in 1994 and after singing of the General Peace Agreement in 1997, he and his supporters had been continuing destabilizing the situation in the Rasht region. While Abdullo”s group was disbanded by government troops with the help of former opposition fighters, Mullo Abdullo and a number of his supporters reportedly fled to Afghanistan and joined up with Taliban militants. In the course of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan that began in 2001, Mullo Abdullo was reportedly arrested in southern Kandahar Province.
A full text of the interview with Mirzo Ziyoyev will be published in the next issue of with the weekly
Asia
-Plus
that will be brought out on May 28.
