DUSHANBE, September 5, 2012, Asia-Plus – Referring to the press center of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, Radio Liberty’s Tajik Service reports Russian Deputy Minister of Defense, Anatoly Antonov, is expected to pay a working visit to Tajikistan in mid-September.
According to RFE/RL, the main purpose of the visit is for Antonov to discuss with high-ranking Tajik state officials issues related to the Russian military base’s presence in Tajikistan.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Defense of Tajikistan has not confirmed this information. “Visits of foreign delegations and arrival of Russian deputy defense minister are not scheduled within this month,” an official source at the Ministry of Defense of Tajikistan told Asia-Plus in an interview Wednesday afternoon.
We will recall that a Russian Ministry of Defense delegation, led by the Deputy Defense Minister in charge of international cooperation, Anatoly Antonov, was in Dushanbe on a working visit from August 7 to August 9. Issues related to the Russian military base’s presence in Tajikistan were a major topic of the delegation’s discussions with high-ranking Tajik state officials. The talks were held behind closed doors.
Official Dushanbe has been at odds with Moscow lately on the issue of the prolongation of the Russian military base’s presence in Tajikistan.
On July 17, Tajikistan”s Foreign Ministry denied a statement by the Russian Army’s Ground Forces commander, General Vladimir Chirkin that Dushanbe has allegedly accepted the Kremlin’s demands for “for no-fee operations,” allowing the base to be used by Russia for further 49 years, as baseless.
Under the current 10-year lease signed in 2004, Russia gets exclusive use of three military bases and joint use of an air base in Tajikistan free of charge. In all, there are more than 7,000 servicemen in three bases deployed in Dushanbe, Qurghon Teppa and Kulob.
The presence of Russian troops in Tajikistan reportedly accounts for Russia”s second-largest military contingent outside its own territory — following only the 13,000-strong Black Sea Fleet in the Ukrainian city of Sevastopol.
