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President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon: Media representatives, ladies and gentlemen,

We think this official visit by President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev to Tajikistan has produced very good results.

The talks took place in the atmosphere of friendship and complete understanding that characterises our countries’ relations. They were open and business-like in nature.

We expressed our desire to deepen and expand our mutually beneficial ties in various areas of political, trade, economic, scientific, technical, humanitarian, and military technical cooperation. We noted our mutual desire to develop our political contacts and expand the areas they cover. We discussed too, ways to make the work of the Intergovernmental Tajikistani-Russian Commission on Economic Cooperation as pragmatic as possible and keep it focused on achieving practical results.

In our discussion of the key areas of our bilateral trade and economic cooperation, we noted the need to make fuller use of the existing cooperation opportunities. Hydroelectricity and other economic sectors in which our two countries have established longstanding cooperation are, in our view, the priorities for continued investment cooperation. 

We paid a lot of attention at the talks to deepening our cultural and humanitarian ties and expressed our support for continuing to develop our relations in science, education, culture, information, and the arts.

We recognise the importance of approving, following our talks, a programme for intergovernmental economic cooperation between our two countries for 2011–2013. We both share the view that implementing this programme will be of substantial help in making progress in all the different areas of our bilateral cooperation.

Acting on our common responsibility for stability and security in Central Asia, we reiterated our firm commitment to continue developing our defence and military technical cooperation. We declared that we see cooperation in these areas as one of the most important areas of our bilateral cooperation today.

The signing of the Agreement on Border Cooperation is one of the main results to come out of these talks. We noted that the current situation in Afghanistan requires all of the region’s countries and the entire international community to continue their practical coordination of the efforts to restore peace and stability to this country. In this respect, we reaffirmed our desire to continue constructive cooperation within the international, regional, and other organisations.

I want to conclude by expressing my great satisfaction with today’s talks. I am sure that this official visit by the leader of the friendly Russia will open a new page in the rich history of the relations between our two countries.

It is now my great pleasure to give the floor to my colleague, the President of the Russian Federation.

The floor is yours, Mr Medvedev.

President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev: Thank you, Mr Rahmon.

Colleagues, media representatives,

I have completed talks with the President of Tajikistan. As always, Mr Rahmon and I had a friendly, frank and productive discussion of the broad range of issues on our bilateral and multilateral cooperation agendas.

Continuing on from the discussions we had at the four-party meeting, we also exchanged views on the situation in the Central Asian region and discussed international issues.

I note that Tajikistan has always been and, I am sure, will remain our strategic ally and partner in all different areas. We reaffirmed today our intention to continue advancing our bilateral cooperation in all different areas and to cooperate within the Commonwealth of Independent States, the CSTO, EurAsEC, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and other international organisations and the new international formats that we create. The format we have established together with Afghanistan and Pakistan, in particular, is very useful and promising, I think. 

We had detailed discussions of a wide range of issues, but of course we paid particular attention to matters concerning our own countries’ security and regional security.

We have just signed very important agreements on border cooperation. They will have a stabilising effect not only in our efforts to combat international terrorism and drug trafficking, but also in guaranteeing peace in this very geopolitically complex and unsettled region. 

We discussed today the completion of work on extending the agreement between our countries on the presence of a Russian military base on Tajikistan’s territory. We agreed to instruct our relevant agencies to have a new forward-looking agreement extending the base’s presence for 49 years, ready for signing in the first quarter of 2012.

I think that this kind of agreement must be carefully put together, and at the same time needs to reflect the balance of interests between the two sides. In any case, Mr Rahmon and I reaffirmed our desire today to reach a final agreement on this matter within the timeframe I just named.

We made a detailed analysis of the opportunities for strengthening our economic ties. One of the main instruments for developing these ties is the 2011–2014 Economic Cooperation Programme that was just signed. This programme will see a cooperation plan readied for implementation very soon. We hope that these documents will stimulate joint business activity and encourage investment. Substantial investment has already been made, though there are still plenty of opportunities for its development. Nevertheless, Russian direct investment in Tajikistan’s economy came to more than $110 million last year. Given that our countries are still in the process of recovering from the various crisis circumstances that affected our cooperation, this is not a bad result, but we will not stop here.

Of course we will take each side’s interests into account in this work. I am instructing our agencies to work also on the complicated issues related to our customs cooperation and cooperation on energy and oil supplies – the current tariffs, I mean. We should have the relevant proposals ready for our colleagues by the end of this year.

Of course we will continue active efforts to expand our cooperation in all other areas too, including humanitarian cooperation and cooperation in science, technology, education, and culture. We have had positive results with opening branches of Russian universities in Tajikistan. The Russian-Tajikistani (Slavic) University is already functioning, and the Russian Cultural Centre is being launched now in Dushanbe. We will continue these efforts to broaden our humanitarian contacts and promote science and technology projects. This represents the future and we place great importance on thess areas.

In conclusion, I thank Mr Rahmon for the hospitable reception and for the constructive and business-like atmosphere of today’s talks. I agree completely with the President of Tajikistan that this visit will help us to strengthen our bilateral ties and the alliance between our two countries. 

Thank you.