DUSHANBE, April 4, 2015, Asia-Plus /Haidar Shodiyev/ — On April 2, representatives of the Working Group on Afghanistan under the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Foreign Ministers’ Council, led the CSTO Deputy Secretary-General Ara Nalbaldyan, visited the Russian military base headquarters in Dushanbe.
The base commander, Major-General Yevgeniy Tubol, briefed members of the CSTO delegation on goals and tasks of the Russian military base deployed in Tajikistan.
Russian general, in particular, noted that within the framework of modernization and technical re-equipment, the base will receive new modern military hardware and its overall strength will reach 9,000 servicemen by 2020.
Tubol further added that under an agreement signed between Russia and Tajikistan, the Russian military based would train up to 1,000 junior specialists for the Tajik national army yearly.
He noted that the main task of the base was provide national security of Russia and its allies in the Central Asian region, provide assistance to the Tajik armed forces in repelling aggression from Afghan territory, guard strategic state and military facilities in the country of deployment, and provide reception of Russian subunits in Tajik territory for carrying out tasks on solving crisis situations and participating in joint operations.
Tubol said that the base’s forces could be at the Tajik-Afghan border within a day if a conflict broke there.
The Working Group on Afghanistan under the CSTO Foreign Ministers’ Council was created to coordinate efforts to strengthen border security in Central Asia. The Working Group holds regular meetings to compare notes on the development of the situation.
The Russian military base deployed in Tajikistan is Russia”s largest non-naval military facility outside the country. It was officially opened in Tajikistan in 2004 under a previous agreement, which was signed in 1993, and hosts Russia’s largest military contingent deployed abroad.
A total of some 6,000 Russian troops are stationed at three military facilities collectively known as the 201st military base – in Dushanbe, Qurghon Teppa, some 100 kilometers from Dushanbe, and Kulob, about 200 kilometers southwest of Dushanbe.
