Majlisi Milli (Tajikistan’s upper chamber of parliament) Chairman Rustam Emomali, who is also the Mayor of Dushanbe, heading a high-level delegation, today arrived in Tehran on a two-day official visit.
The Majlisi Milli press center says heads of a number of parliament’s committees and some other high-ranking Tajik state officials are accompanying him on his visit to the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Iran’s Parliament Speaker Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Tajikistan’s Ambassador to Iran Nizomiddin Zohedi and some other officials met Rustam Emomali at the Tehran airport.
Meanwhile Iran’s news agency Mehr reports that Rustam Emomali has already held talks with Mohammad Bagher Ghalibaf, Chairman of Majles-e Shura-ye Eslami (Iran’s Parliament).
While in Tehran, Rustam Emomali will also hold talks with Iran’s President Seyyed Ebrahim Raisi and some other high-raking Iranian state officials, Mehr said.
“We hope this visit will be the beginning of further development of relationships and a new chapter in the development of bilateral collaboration,” an official source within Majles-e Shura-ye Eslami told Mehr.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Tajikistan and Iran have naturally enjoyed a close and strong relationship with the two often being described as "one spirit in two bodies" by the ex-president of Iran Mahmoud Ahmadinejad due to both being Persian-speaking and Iranic countries.
Iran was the first nation to establish an embassy in Dushanbe. It was also one of the first countries to extend diplomatic recognition of the newly independent Tajikistan in 1991.
During the civil war in Tajikistan, Iran offered to mediate between the two factions. In 1995, Tajikistan opened its first embassy in Tehran, one of the few outside of the former USSR. Relations have since grown stronger, as the two nations cooperate in the energy sector and officials from both nations have supported stronger ties.
Tajikistan and Iran have traditionally close relations, sharing many similar cultural, religious and ethnic identifiers and Iran has been a major sponsor of essential hydropower infrastructure in Tajikistan, but Iran has angered Tajikistan by inviting the Islamic Revival Party (IRPT) leader Muhiddin Kabiri to attend the International Islamic Unity Conference that took place in Tehran on December 27-29, 2015.
Tajikistan started taking efforts to improve its relations with the Islamic Republic of Iran in early 2019, and the long period of chill in relations between Tajikistan and Iran has come to an end.
