The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Secretary-General Stanislav Zas has visited the Shouroobod stretch (Khatlon province) and the Qalai Khumb stretch (Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Region) of Tajikistan’s common border with Afghanistan.
According to the CSTO press center, Zas got acquainted with the border infrastructure as well as weapons, military equipment and technical means of border protection used by Tajik border troops.
The CSTO secretary general also visited in hospital a Tajik woman, who had been wounded by fire from Afghan territory.
This trip was organized by the Tajik side within the framework of development of the CSTO project for strengthening the Tajik-Afghan border control.
During his previous visit to Tajikistan, Zas met with Tajik President Emomali Rahmon on February 18 to discuss tasks facing the Organization and a number of regional and international issues being of mutual interest.
Tajikistan, in particular, highlighted the significance of expansion of collaboration in the framework of the CSTO on the issues of effectively addressing the spread of destructive ideologies of a radical nature in the Organization’s area of responsibility and combating cybercrime and other illegal actions using information and communications technologies.
Tajik leader also underlined the importance of intensification of work on implementing the CSTO’s resolution on the list of additional measures to reduce tensions in the Tajik-Afghan border areas.
Recall, the Chairman of the State Committee for National Security of Tajikistan (SCNS), Saimumin Yatimov, on February 14 met in Kabul with high-ranking Afghan state officials to discuss bilateral security cooperation, and the situation along the Afghan-Tajik border.
Radio Liberty reported in December that Tajikistan has deployed additional troops along its southern border with Afghanistan after Afghan authorities claimed a group of militants from Tajikistan played a major role in the Taliban's capture of an Afghan district in November. Afghan officials said the majority of the militants who overran the Maymay district in the northeastern Badakhshan Province in November last year were foreign fighters, including militants from Tajikistan. They said the fighters belong to Jamaat Ansarullah, a militant group founded in Afghanistan by Tajik national Amriddin Tabarov in 2010.
