DUSHANBE, October 24, 2011, Asia-Plus — The Turkmen authorities have allowed Turkmen students to return to Tajikistan to resume their studies,
Khronika Turkmenistana
(Chronicles of Turkmenistan) reports.
According to
Khronika Turkmenistan
, only the last year students have been allowed to return to Tajikistan to finish studies at Tajik universities.
News that Turkmenistan’s Migration Service has lifted ban on travel to Tajikistan for studying has spread among students and a group of students living in Turkmen Lebap province have tried to cross the Turkmen-Uzbek border but only the last year students have been allowed to cross the border,
Khronika
Turkmenistana
noted.
We will recall that Radio Liberty’s Turkmen Service reported on September 12 that hundreds of Turkmen students enrolled at universities in Tajikistan have been barred by Turkmenistan”s Migration Service from returning to resume their studies. A fifth-year student from Turkmenistan”s northeastern Lebap Province studying at the Tajik State Medical Institute told RFE/RL he has returned home every summer and has never before had problems leaving the country. Most students from Lebap travel overland to Tajikistan via Uzbekistan. But he said that on September 1 Turkmen border officials stopped him and several other students at the border and did not allow them to cross. The officials said they were acting on orders and gave no reason for the ban.
A fourth-year female student from Lebap who studies at Tajik State University also told RFE/RL that this year she and fellow students were barred from entering Uzbekistan at the Tally Merjen border crossing — which they had used in the past — as well as at the Farab checkpoint. She said they were told by the Migration Office in Lebap and the State Migration Office in Ashgabat that they have been barred from crossing the border. They were not told who imposed the ban, why, or for how long it will remain in force.
She added that about 870 Turkmen students study at Tajik State University.
Only a few Turkmen students get government scholarships to study at Tajik universities, where the annual tuition fees average about $2,000. Turkmen students from Lebap reportedly often choose Tajik schools as the tuition is cheaper than it is in Europe.
