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President Vladimir Putin: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen,

We will briefly inform you on the results of the first part of our meeting today with President of Tajikistan Emomali Rakhmonov.

Here in Sochi we have discussed the prospects for our strategic partnership and for our relations with Tajikistan in practically all the areas of our cooperation. We have analysed in detail all the current bilateral political, economic and military issues before us.

Security in the Central Asian region was one of the main items on our agenda today and we reiterated the importance of our cooperation within the CIS, the Collective Security Treaty Organisation and the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation. Not only does this cooperation provide a genuine boost to the defence capability and defence potential of our two countries, it also acts as a serious factor contributing to stability in Central Asia. We reached an agreement with the President of Tajikistan today on creating a separate border protection cooperation programme. We agreed that we will implement a cooperation programme in this area and that the Russian Federation will carry out an assistance programme to help Tajikistan develop its border guard service.

We continued our detailed discussion of key cooperation issues in light of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation summit in Shanghai on June 15. There are a number of issues involved in preparation for this summit, which concerns the entire region.

I would like to stress that we greatly value the consistent line taken by Tajikistan and by the President of Tajikistan personally with regard to consolidating the constructive integration processes underway in the post-Soviet area.

We will continue to coordinate our work in this area of activity that is of such genuine importance for our peoples.

We are satisfied with the positive growth in trade between our countries. The statistics show that bilateral trade was up 60 percent in the first quarter of this year compared to the same period last year. Now we must work to consolidate this trend. This is entirely within our power given the growth the Russian economy is experiencing and the good economic results that have been achieved in Tajikistan itself. We see growing cooperation in the hydroelectricity sector as a priority development resource. A number of ambitious projects are currently underway in Tajikistan. We should also note Gazprom’s active involvement in developing oil and gas deposits in Tajikistan.

We also exchanged views on current regional and international issues. We gave a lot of attention to the situation in Tajikistan. Together with the other members of the international community we are ready to continue helping our southern neighbours to rebuild their economic and social infrastructure.

In conclusion I would once more like to say that I am pleased with the results of today’s meeting. I am sure that it will help consolidate the strategic partnership between Russia and Tajikistan – a partnership in the interests of peace and stability throughout our lands and a prosperous future for our peoples. We all understand full well just how important the southern region is for Russia’s national security, and in this context cooperation with Tajikistan is genuinely strategic.

Thank you very much for your attention.

President of Tajikistan Emomali Rakhmonov: Dear media representatives!

I confirm what Vladimir Vladimirovich just said about the level of relations between Tajikistan and Russia. In essence, today we do not have any major disagreements, any serious outstanding questions or problems.

There is some backlog concerning the implementation of our agreements in Tajikistan. But as a whole there are positive developments in the economic, cultural, humanitarian and other fields. I would like to especially point out the high level of political, diplomatic, military and technological cooperation.

We are very grateful to the President of Russia for his support in training the border guards and officers of Tajikistan’s Ministry of Defense. I confirm what Vladimir Vladimirovich said about the fact that today we agreed to establish a programme to help develop Tajikistan’s border guard service, train personnel and develop equipment.

At my request the President of Russia has allocated a yearly quota of 50 places for students from Tajikistan in the institutes of higher education for Russian border guards. Right now approximately 400 of our experts from Tajikistan’s Ministry of Defense are being trained in Russia.

We also discussed the issue of providing technical help to our Defense Ministry. In other words there is a positive dynamic within the whole range of our bilateral relations. We do not consider that we have attained some kind of limit, but rather that we have reserves we must draw on in the future.

At the meeting we touched on the issue of the number of bilateral documents that have been signed. There are more than 178 documents and more than forty of them have already expired. But of those that remain not all are being implemented both because of financial limitations and because of the slowness of intrastate procedures.

We also agreed about establishing an intergovernmental commission to examine the entire legal base of our relations and determine which projects are not working well. More than twenty new agreements have already been developed and sent to the Russian side so that they can look them over and sign them with a view to developing our bilateral relations.

We spoke about issues concerning regional security. Tajikistan is the Central Asian republic that has the longest border with Afghanistan – almost 1,400 km of mountainous border. The military advisers and border guards who are now working together with us along this border are helping us reestablish our border services and protect the Commonwealth’s southern borders. Especially as regards the influx of drugs from Afghanistan, as well as terrorists, extremists and international organized crime. According to the UN, Tajikistan occupies fourth place in the world with respect to the seizure of drugs. Naturally we require assistance in this field, especially from Russia.

We agreed to name a special representative from the Russian Federal Drugs Control Service to the Drugs Control Service in Tajikistan. The representative will be in Tajikistan to coordinate cooperation between the drugs control services.

Naturally, we discussed issues linked to preparing documents for the summits of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and of the Eurasian Economic Community that will take place in Shanghai and in Minsk respectively. Our coordination within the Eurasian Economic Community and the Collective Security Treaty Organization is as close as it could be. In practice we do not have disagreements regarding decisions made within these organizations.

I would also like to add that the Russian Federation is involved in major hydroelectric projects in Tajikistan. They consist in the Rogun and Sangtuda hydroelectric power stations. Next year Sangtuda-1 will begin operating.

We have a lot of projects in the iron, steel and nonferrous metals industry and in the chemical industry.

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I would once again like to thank Vladimir Vladimirovich for the invitation. We met here last year and resolved various urgent issues and problems. And we agreed that before the end of the year we will meet here once again to discuss questions concerning our bilateral and multilateral cooperation.

Thank you very much.