DUSHAHBE, July 21, 2010, Asia-Plus — A group of officers from the Ministry of Interior of Tajikistan have been included into an investigation team made up of specialists from member nations of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) to investigate into recent tragic events that took place in southern Kyrgyzstan.
Minister of Interiors, Abdurahim Qahhorov, remarked this today at a news conference in Dushanbe. According to him, the team will be se to Kyrgyzstan in the near future.
Qahhorov noted that despite statements by a number of Kyrgyz politicians, Kyrgyz authorities have not yet presented any evidence of involvement of Tajik nationals in the violence in southern Kyrgyzstan to Tajik law enforcement authorities.
“I do not rule out participation of Tajiks in the violence in Kyrgyzstan, because some nationals of our country that took training courses at terrorist camps abroad could be involved in these events. Besides, it must not be forgotten that Afghans also speak Tajik and there are Tajik-speaking people among militants of Mahmoud Khudoiberdiyev,” Qahhorov noted.
We will recall that Tajikistan”s State Committee for National Security last month sent a letter to the Kyrgyz interim government asking it to explain media reports that say Tajik citizens are involved in the violence in southern Kyrgyzstan.
Kubat Baibolov, Kyrgyzstan”s deputy security minister and the commandant of the southern city of Jalal-Abad, was quoted by Russia”s ITAR-TASS as saying the conflict between ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in Jalal-Abad and Osh was ignited by a group of Tajiks hired by relatives of ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiev who killed Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in order to provoke the ethnic unrest. But Baibolov told RFE/RL in an interview on June 16 that the ITAR-TASS report is untrue. He said despite some information that citizens of a third country had operated among the gangs that attacked Kyrgyz and Uzbeks, there is no evidence about their nationality. He added that he never said they were Tajiks.
However, the head of Kyrgyzstan”s Security Service, Keneshbek Duishebaev, later said some members of the now defunct United Tajik Opposition had been involved in planning the unrest, RFE/RL’s Tajik Service reported on July 1.
General Abdullo Nazarov, the head of the GBAO security directorate, told RFE/RL that reports are unfounded that he and other Tajiks were either involved in fomenting or directly taking part in the deadly violence in southern Kyrgyzstan between ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz. Nazarov blamed the ethnic clashes on some “superpowers” who he said wanted to “ignite a fire” in Kyrgyzstan in order to embed themselves in the region”s affairs. He said these unnamed powers also wanted to create instability in Tajikistan but failed because the Tajik government is strong enough to resist such moves.
