President Emomali Rahmon is scheduled to pay a state visit to Turkmenistan from August 4-5, and on August 6, he will participate in an informal summit of Central Asian heads of state that will take place in the Turkmen capital of Ashgabat on August 6, Tajik Foreign Minister Sirojiddin Muhriddin told reporters in Dushanbe on July 27.
“Therefore, he will not be able to attend the inauguration of Iranian president elect Ebrahim Raisi that is scheduled to be held in Tehran on August 5,” the minister said.
According to him, Rahmon's state visit to Turkmenistan took almost one year to prepare.
“A meeting of the Tajik-Turkmen intergovernmental commission for trade and economic cooperation that will take place in Dushanbe on July 28-29 will prepare a solid package of bilateral agreements for signing during our leader’s visit to Ashgabat,” Muhriddin noted.
He noted that Tajikistan will be represented at the inauguration by Mahmadtoir Zokirzoda, the Speaker of the Majlisi Namoyandagon (Tajikistan’s lower chamber of parliament).
Tajikistan is among few countries that have been invited for the inauguration of the new Iran president.
Muhriddin further noted that the issue of granting Iran the full membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) is not on the agenda of the SCO summit that will take place in Dushanbe in September this year.
“Such issues are dealt overnight. Declaration on admitting India and Pakistan as full members of the Organization were adopted in 2013, but they became full members of the Organization in 2017,” the minister added.
It is to be noted that Iran, which has observer status, applied for full membership in the Organization on March 24, 2008 and after the UN sanctions were lifted, Chinese president Xi Jinping announced support for Iran's full membership in SCO in January 2016.
