DUSHANBE, March 25, 2011, Asia-Plus — Tajikistan has offered China to establish an air corridor, Azizkhon Nabiyev, head of the civil aviation department within the Ministry of Transport (MoT), said in an interview with Asia-Plus.
According to him, Tajikistan sent its proposal on the establishment of the air corridor between the two countries to the Chinese government last autumn and the Chinese side is still considering the issue.
“Tajikistan and China have never had direct air corridor and planes flying from Tajikistan to Urumqi (China) have to transit airspaces of Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan that requires additional time and finance,” Nabiyev said, adding that the direct air route between the two countries would give Tajikistan an opportunity to not only operate flights to China directly but also become “a transit territory for air companies of other countries.
On the new air-traffic management agreement between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan, he noted that the agreement has not yet been signed and the countries are still working under a temporary agreement singed on June 26, 2010.
A draft air-traffic management agreement provides for determining the procedure of management of air traffic and determines areas, where air traffic management is delivered to other side. Tajik officials submitted the draft of a new permanent agreement on air traffic management for consideration to Uzbekistan last July already.
As it had been reported earlier, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan signed the temporary agreement on air traffic control and collection of air navigation fees on June 26, 2010 at Uzbekistan”s insistence. Besides, under the June 26 temporary agreement, each country”s air-traffic controllers take complete responsibility for guiding its planes to land. In addition, Uzbekistan has asked that Tajik planes no longer begin their descent to land in Sughd from Uzbek airspace.
In accordance with the terminated 1993 agreement, Uzbek air-traffic controllers guided planes overflying Uzbek territory to land in Tajikistan”s northern Sughd province, while Tajik air-traffic controllers provided similar guidance to Uzbek planes landing in Uzbekistan”s southern Surkhandarya province. Under the terminated 1993 agreement, Tajik and Uzbek air carriers were exempted from paying the air navigation fees for use of air spaces of the two countries.
