The meeting of the Tajik-Russian intergovernmental commission rescheduled for April.
The visit of the first deputy prime minister Igor Shuvalov to Tajikistan to attend in the tomorrow’s meeting of the Tajik-Russian intergovernmental commission that was to be held in Dushanbe, is rescheduled.
According to the information reported from the Ministry of energy and industries to “AP”, as far as on Saturday they have received a notice of the Russian party informing that the work of the meeting is to be rescheduled and relevantly so is the visit of Igor Shuvalov who is a co-chairperson of the intergovernmental commission from the Russian side. The co-chairperson from the Tajik side is the prime-minister RT Akil Akilov.
“Since the meeting was established by and must have been held at the level of the governments and prime-ministers, the responsibility for supervision of this issue was on MFA. “They have not explained the reason but informed that the meeting is rescheduled for April” – the source informed.
The Ministry of foreign affairs of Tajikistan reported to AP that the main reason of rescheduling the meeting date was that not the all issues were agreed according to the protocol which was to be accepted on the outcomes of the meeting of the intergovernmental commission. “The exact date will be known as soon as all of these issues are solved” – as added in MFA of Tajikistan.
It was assumed that the Russian and Tajik government officials would discuss more than 20 partnership issues in the fields of economy, energy, science and culture, nuclear waste disposal and many others in the course of the meeting.
According to the information delivered from the government of Tajikistan the parties were also intended to address and take into consideration the agreements on partnership in the sphere of supplying of oil products from Russia to Tajikistan and in the sphere of migration which have been signed in Moscow over the last week. The agenda has also included an issue concerning the accumulated debts of “Barki Tojik” (321,9 mln Somoni) for electrical power supplied by Sangtuda HEPS-1.
Nevertheless, some experts link the meeting date postponement with the fact that Tajikistan has not yet ratified the agreement on the stay conditions of the Russian military base on the territory of RT. “Since Russia has practically fulfilled its commitments including those concerning the abolition of tariffs for Fuels and Lubricants and the facilitation of stay terms for the Tajik migrants in RF by having signed the appropriate agreements with Tajikistan, the main agenda issues of the meeting of the intergovernmental commission are removed in the principle. Moreover, from now on Moscow is entitled to demand the ratification of the agreement on the military base” – noted the source close to the government circles.
As earlier as after negotiations held in Dushanbe between President Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon and Head of MFA RF Sergei Lavrov, Minister of foreign affairs of Tajikistan Hamrohon Zarifi stated that the ratification of agreement on the military base would take place after the F&L and Migration issues are resolved.
“The Tajik-Russian agreement on the stay terms and the status of the Russian military base in Tajikistan will be ratified by the parliaments of Tajikistan and Russia after the agreements on duty-free supplies of oil products and on the labor migration are signed”. – As Zarifi informed on the 17
th
February.
At the same time Lavrov assured, that the signing of agreements on oil products and labour migration, which were agreed in the course of the visit of Russian President Vladimir Putin to Tajikistan in October 2012, was expected in the first quarter of this year.
He also added that all was going in line with the schedule and the agreements were performed in due time. “This applies to the Russian- Tajik agreements of the military, economic and humanitarian spheres on which we are going to report to the heads of our states” – underlined Lavrov.
