DUSHANBE, June 13, 2016, Asia-Plus – President Emomali Rahmon is expected to pay a working visit to the Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) from June 25-28, a source in the Tajik government told Asia-Plus in an interview.
According to him, the main purpose of the visit is for the president to participate in celebrations dedicated to the 19th anniversary of the National Unity Day of Tajikistan that will take place in Khorog, the capital of the Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Region on June 27.
While in Gorno Badakhshan, Rahmon will inaugurate a number of social and economic facilities in the province.
He is also scheduled to visit areas affected by last year’s earthquake, the source said
We will recall that a magnitude-7.2 tremor occurred in Tajikistan’s Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Region (GBAO) on December 7, killing two persons and injuring ten people. The Geophysics Survey of Tajikistan’s Academy of Sciences says the epicenter was 93 kilometers west of the settlement of Murgab, the administrative center of GBAO’s Murgab district, 138 kilometers northeast of Khorog and 357 kilometers southeast of Dushanbe. The Bartang Valley in the Rushan district was the most hit area. 1,327 houses were damaged or destroyed. Critical infrastructure, including roads, medical facilities, hydro-power stations, and schools also incurred damage. 50 hectares have been allotted to the earth-affected residents of Bartang for housing in the Basid jamoat of Rushan.
President Rahmon will get acquainted with the pace of recovery work and construction of new residential buildings for the quake-affected people, the source noted.
The president is also scheduled to hold meetings with residents of the GBAO districts and Khorog City.
A decision on holding the main events dedicated to the 19th anniversary of the National Unity Day of Tajikistan in Khorog was made in January this year.
Meanwhile, an official source at one of Tajikistan’s power-wielding structures says additional forces will be sent to Gorno Badakhshan ahead of Rahmon’s visit for maintaining order and security in the region.
This year is the 19th anniversary of the National Unity Day of Tajikistan. Nineteen years ago, on June 27, 1997, the confronting sides signed in Moscow the General Agreement on the Establishment of Peace and National Accord in Tajikistan. For the purposes of achieving peace and national accord in Tajikistan and overcoming the consequences of the civil war, inter-Tajik talks on national reconciliation were conducted from April 1994 to 1997 under the auspices of the United Nations.
Protocols that were agreed and signed in the course of eight rounds of talks between delegations of the Government of Tajikistan and the United Tajik Opposition (UTO), six meetings between the President of Tajikistan and the UTO leader, and also three rounds of consultations between the delegations of the sides in Almaty, Ashgabat, Bishkek, Islamabad, Kabul, Mashhad (Iran), Moscow, Tehran and Khusdeh (Afghanistan) constituted the General Agreement on the Establishment of Peace and National Accord in Tajikistan.
