Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov's interview with Khovar National Information Agency of Tajikistan under the Government of Tajikistan marking the 30th anniversary of diplomatic relations, September 14, 2022
14 September 2022 10:10
1867-14-09-2022
Question: Mr Lavrov, five years ago, you started an article in Rossiiskaya Gazeta with the following words: “An anniversary is always a great opportunity to look back on past achievements and outline plans for the future - we have things to present to the people of our countries.”
April 8, 2022, marked 30 years since the Republic of Tajikistan and the Russian Federation established diplomatic relations. Over this period, the two countries have signed more than 300 interstate, intergovernmental and interagency agreements dealing with political, economic, military and technical, cultural, humanitarian and other affairs. This created a robust contractual legal framework for our relations. Could you share your assessment of the current relations between our countries?
Sergey Lavrov: Our people have traditionally maintained strong bonds, routed in many centuries of their shared history, friendship and mutual trust.
It is no secret that we started building our relations in their current form during turbulent times. Our country was one of the first to recognise Tajikistan's independence and sovereignty. By signing the Protocol establishing diplomatic relations on April 8, 1992, we elevated our cooperation to a new level.
Over the past 30 years, we have gone to great lengths to create an effective model of interstate relations based on the universally accepted principles of international law. Today, it would not be an exaggeration to refer to Russia-Tajikistan ties as a model of a genuine strategic partnership and allied cooperation. There has been steady progress in our political dialogue, primarily at the highest and top level. Interparliamentary exchanges have also been developing successfully with regular international forums Russia-Tajikistan: Potential for Inter-Regional Cooperation and conferences to promote region-to-region cooperation.
By working together, we have created, and regularly update, a solid legal framework, which covers our cooperation in all its aspects, including about 200 interstate and intergovernmental agreements, as well as over 80 contracts and memorandums at the regional level.
Russia and Tajikistan are reliable partners in trade and investment. In this regard, we attach special importance to the Intergovernmental Commission for Economic Cooperation. Despite the objective challenges we are facing, mutual trade increased 44.7 percent in 2021 compared to 2020, reaching $1.2 billion. In the first four months of 2022, this indicator increased 15.7 percent year-on-year to $408.8 million. Russia accounts for over 21 percent of Tajikistan's foreign trade.
More than 300 companies with Russian capital work in Tajikistan with the total accumulated investment in the republic's economy valued at $1.6 billion or 16 percent of the total investment in the country. This includes $800 million in direct investment or 17.7 percent of total FDI.
We have been proactive in our cooperation on the cultural and humanitarian tracks. Education clearly plays a key role here. To meet the growing demand in Tajikistan, Russian universities have been opening their branches in the republic, while also seeking to recruit candidates to study at Russia's higher education institutions under scholarships awarded by the Government of the Russian Federation. On September 1, 2022, the heads of our two countries released a video message to mark the opening of five new Russian-language schools, which follow Russian educational standards, in Dushanbe, Khujand, Bokhtar, Kulob and Tursunzoda. The project to send teachers from the Russian regions to Tajikistan is underway.
We work closely together and coordinate our efforts on security and defence measures, including in our bilateral contacts, as well as within multilateral structures across the Eurasian space. These coordinated efforts help maintain stability in the Republic of Tajikistan, as well as across Central Asia.
Our countries share the commitment to countering new challenges and threats, including international terrorism, religious extremism, and drug trafficking, and play a constructive role in shaping collective approaches to the key issues on the regional and international agendas.
Question: How would you characterise the relationship between Emomali Rahmon and Vladimir Putin, the heads of our two states?
Sergey Lavrov: The expressly friendly and trust-based relations between the heads of our two states are a firm basis and guarantee of the fruitful development of our bilateral ties. The presidents of the Russian Federation and the Republic of Tajikistan regularly exchange visits and messages, meet on the sidelines of multilateral events, and talk over the phone. Last year, at President Vladimir Putin's invitation, President Emomali Rahmon attended the Parade on the occasion of the 76th anniversary of Victory in the Great Patriotic War. He also took part in an informal CIS Summit in St Petersburg in December 2021 and a meeting of the CSTO heads of state in Moscow on May 16 of this year. The two leaders held bilateral meetings on the sidelines of these events.
It is largely due to these eventful personal contacts that the Russian-Tajik strategic partnership and alliance develop in such a dynamic and effective manner. The trust-based dialogue at the top level makes it possible to promptly deal with current problems and find mutually acceptable solutions to issues of bilateral interest.
Question: Led by President Emomali Rahmon, the Republic of Tajikistan has done a huge amount of work during the 30 years of its independence, establishing and expanding effective cooperation with countries across the world. It is an active member of international and regional organisations and enjoys a positive international standing. What, in your view, are Tajikistan's main foreign policy achievements?
Sergey Lavrov: Of course, this is a question that could best be answered by my Tajik counterpart, Minister of Foreign Affairs Sirojiddin Muhriddin, because it concerns his, as we say, “eparchy,” and his purview. By no means aspiring to the absoluteness and objectivity of assessments, I would like to note, on my own behalf, our Tajikistan friends' great contribution to such multilateral entities as the CIS and CSTO. In 2018 and 2021, respectively, the Republic of Tajikistan successfully completed its chairmanship of these organisations.
Dushanbe has also accomplished with credit the honourary mission related to its chairmanship of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, which coincided with the 20th anniversary of its establishment. The meeting of the SCO heads of state, which accepted the Dushanbe Declaration, was held at a high organisational level. This document sealed the aims and areas of cooperation that were of importance in order to ensure collective security in Central Asia.
We can hardly overestimate President Emomali Rahmon's personal efforts as the doyen of the Central Asian Five to strengthen stability and ensure prosperity in both Tajikistan and the region as a whole. His rich experience is invariably needed in the search for mutually acceptable compromises where all opportunities for a political negotiation of difficulties seem to have been exhausted.
Question: Tajikistan is known for its global water initiatives. Our country's proposals at the UN invariably find support from Russia. Between June 6 and 9, Dushanbe hosted the Second High-level Conference on the International Decade for Action “Water for sustainable development” 2018-2028, which involved high-ranking Russian representatives. How would you assess Tajikistan's initiatives on the careful use of water resources in the world?
Sergey Lavrov: A responsible attitude towards and rational use of natural resources, including water, are necessary conditions in order to ensure the sustainable development of states.
Russia, which has the world's largest water reserves, is aware of the need to achieve the global Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 6: Ensure availability and sustainable management of water and sanitation for all. In this regard, we are vigorously promoting Tajikistan's water initiatives, including at the UN.
Thus, our country co-sponsored the UN General Assembly resolutions, promoted by Dushanbe, on holding UN International Decades for Action Water for Life 2005-2015 and Water for Sustainable Development 2018-2028, and supported the initiative to declare 2025 as the Year of Glacier Conservation. The Russian side is implementing comprehensive water-related and environmental projects in the Central Asian region, as part of the United Nations Development Programme and the United Nations Environment Programme.
We consider the high-level water action event held in Dushanbe in June as an important stage in the run-up to the UN Global midterm comprehensive review conference on the International Water Action Decade, scheduled to be held on March 22-24, 2023 in New York.
We express our readiness to expand effective cooperation with our Tajik partners to promote the water agenda at the global level.
Question: You took part in all three Foreign Ministers' meetings among the Neighbouring Countries of Afghanistan, the last one held in China, on March 31. Tajikistan then reiterated its approach to the fundamental conditions for resolving security issues in Afghanistan: the formation of an inclusive government involving all political, ethnic and social groups through nationwide elections, as well as guaranteeing human rights. Do you think there is any hope that these conditions will be met?
Sergey Lavrov: I would like to note that Russia joined the Neighbouring Countries of Afghanistan format, created in September 2021, at its second meeting in Iran in October 2021. One aspect of the meeting that you referred to in Tunxi was the adoption of an initiative to support Afghanistan's economic recovery and practical cooperation with the country.
In our dialogue with the new authorities in Afghanistan, we urge them to fulfil their previous obligations, first of all, to complete the process of intra-Afghan reconciliation and form truly inclusive power institutions reflecting the interests of all key ethno-political forces in the country, while countering the spread of terrorism and drugs, and ensuring basic human rights. All these issues were discussed during the Russian interdepartmental delegation's visit to Kabul at the end of March, as well as during my bilateral meeting with the Acting Foreign Minister of Afghanistan in Tunxi.
We note the steps taken by the Taliban authorities to stabilise the military and political situation and combat drug trafficking. However, in a challenging socioeconomic environment, these actions are limited.
We believe that the United States and its allies are responsible for the current deplorable state of the Afghan economy, after their disastrous 20-year presence in that country. Therefore, they must assume the main financial burden of the post-war rehabilitation of Afghanistan, and free the frozen Afghan assets, as a first step.
Question: Are the CSTO and other associations ready to counter threats if the situation in the region escalates?
Sergey Lavrov: Our current agenda provides for working together with our partners within the CSTO, the SCO and other mechanisms, including the expanded troika and the Moscow-Format Consultations on Afghanistan.
As for the CSTO, we believe that it has a lot of potential for promoting regional security. There is a shared understanding within the organisation that the alarming trends in Afghanistan must compel all member states to consolidate their efforts to fight international terrorism, extremism, and drug trafficking.
We regularly discuss matters related to Afghanistan within the CSTO. In particular, the Collective Security Council held an extraordinary session in August 2022 to discuss measures we can take to neutralise threats coming from Afghanistan's territory. This issue was also on the agenda of the CSTO summits in September 2021 and May 2022. The heads of state have articulated specific objectives and we are working to deliver on them.
Let me also note that the CSTO demonstrated its effectiveness in January 2022 during its peacekeeping mission in Kazakhstan.
Based in Tajikistan, Russia's 201st Military Base is a reliable guarantee of stability and security in Central Asia. It has all the modern weapons it needs at its disposal to assist Tajikistan in controlling the situation along its border. Russia has also reaffirmed on multiple occasions its readiness to take additional measures, if needed, in the spirit of allied relations with Tajikistan to prevent any aggression or provocations against its territory.
Following up on the proposals by our partners from Tajikistan, we are working on mechanisms to secure the CSTO's southern borders, including by holding joint military manoeuvres and helping Dushanbe reinforce certain sections along its border with Afghanistan.
Overall, I would like to note that as the CSTO chair in 2020 and 2021, Tajikistan made a major contribution to reinforcing the organisation's potential, primarily in terms of promoting security in Central Asia.
Question: What do you think about the prospects for developing relations between Tajikistan and Russia? Do the two countries have any untapped resources or opportunities?
Sergey Lavrov: We have every right to pride ourselves on our joint achievements. At the same time, I strongly believe that we need to move forward and set increasingly ambitious goals by expanding and strengthening bilateral cooperation in a pragmatic and mutually beneficial manner.
In particular, this must include efforts to explore new forms of cooperation in the defence and technology sector, to modernise our economies and manufacturing, promote joint ventures in technology-intensive sectors, devise joint hydropower projects, develop agriculture, step up our ties in healthcare and biotechnology, tourism and sport. We reaffirm our commitment to paying special attention to social, cultural, educational and humanitarian matters, including training professionals, undertaking joint educational and research programmes, and promoting academic mobility.
Question: You have visited Tajikistan many times. What is the most special memory you can share with us about these trips to our country?
Sergey Lavrov: Indeed, I have visited friendly Tajikistan on multiple occasions as part of my professional duties. I always marvel at the beauty of nature here and hold very warm memories of every visit I have paid to your hospitable country.
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