Tajikistan Foreign Minister Snubs Saudis for a Trip to Iran

This article was originally published by Eurasianet.

Is Tajikistan about to have another strategic change of heart? On June 1, the Organization for Islamic Cooperation held a summit of foreign ministers from its member states in the Saudi city of Jeddah.

Although the conference was scheduled long in advance, Tajikistan’s foreign minister snubbed the event, sending his deputy in his place. Instead, Sirodjidin Muhriddin preferred to pay a visit to the sworn enemy of Saudi Arabia — Iran.

A dark cloud has been hanging over relations between Tajikistan and Iran — ostensibly two brother nations linked by a Persian heritage — since late 2015.

Toward the end of that year, Tehran invited Muhiddin Kabiri, the leader of the opposition Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan, or IRPT, to attend a conference on Islam, enraging officials in Dushanbe. Authorities in Tajikistan had some months earlier banned the IRPT and then designated it an extremist group, so Iran’s apparent endorsement of Kabiri felt like a calculated slight.

Since that time, there is not enough bad that Tajikistan can say about Iran. President Emomali Rahmon has suggested that Iran was a primary instigator of the civil war of the 1990s. Security officials have, without providing a shred of evidence, accused Iran of assisting the opposition cook up violent plots. And Iranian businessman have been squeezed out of the country.

The figures speak for themselves. Trade turnover between the countries was $165 million in 2015. That dropped to USD 92 million in 2018.

The received wisdom is that this row has to a great extent been engineered by the Saudis.

Riyadh’s man in Dushanbe confirmed as much last year, when he bragged about how his government had granted Tajikistan over USD 200 million in aid over the years, partly as piece of a strategy to push their main foe out of the region.

Tajikistan, which teeters permanently on the verge of insolvency, likely pursued this friendship in the hope of generating yet more financial assistance and investment from their Arabian friends.

But the turn back to Iran suggests this love affair may have now been put on ice.

The results of the detente have already borne some fruit, with Iran now seemingly explicitly foreswearing its prior cultivation of the IRPT.

On June 2, the Iranian news website Farsnews deleted an old interview with Kabiri, the IRPT leader. Also, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qassemi has been citedby Farsnews as saying that “Iran has not and is not supporting any group that acts against Tajikistan’s legal bodies and has always sought good and brotherly relations with that government.” This was another clear reference to the IRPT.

Tajikistan is clearly hopeful this new outbreak of amity will presage remunerative dividends.

Fars News cited Prime Minister Kokhir Rasulzoda as saying last week, during farewell consultations with outgoing Iranian Ambassador Hojatullah Faqani, that Dushanbe is eager to see an improvement in trade and economic ties.

“We demand an increase in the volume of trade exchanges, especially the strengthening of investments and presence of Iran in the agricultural, energy, industry and tourism sectors of Tajikistan,” Rasulzoda is quoted as having said.

Rasulzoda then went on to commend Iran for its historic investments in major infrastructure projects in Tajikistan, including hydroelectric power plants and tunnels. Among examples of the former, he included the Roghun dam, which is curious since there is no evidence that Tehran has ever provided any assistance to this economically existential undertaking. It is possible this was wishful thinking.

While in Tehran, Muhriddin urged Iranian President Hassan Rouhani to travel to Dushanbe later this month to participate at event called the Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia. There is certainly much room for confidence-building in this on-again, off-again relationship.

Photo: IRNA

Iran Factor Seen in Tajikistan’s Stranded Trucks

This article has been republished with permission from Eurasianet.

For the last two weeks, around 50 trucks traveling to or from Tajikistan have lain stranded on the northern and southern borders of Turkmenistan in a standoff that defies immediate explanation.

The trucks traveling from Tajikistan are carrying aluminum, produced at the country’s giant Talco plant, to Turkey. The cargo coming in the other direction comprises mainly textiles.

It is not clear why Turkmenistan should have barred Tajik vehicles from crossing its territory. In fact, senior transportation officials in Dushanbe have told Eurasianet on condition of anonymity that one working suspicion is that the blockade may have been instigated by Iran, which shares a long border with Turkmenistan.

One long-haul driver, who also asked that his name not be published for fear of repercussions, said that in the 10 years he has been ferrying aluminum from the Talco plant in the town of Tursunzoda, this is the first time he has run into such trouble. On September 4, when Eurasianet spoke with the driver, who is parked with his freight in a location on the Uzbek-Turkmen border, he had been waiting for nine days to be allowed through. 

“They will not give us a reason. We thought the problem might be something to with transit permits, which we didn’t bring with us from Tajikistan,” the driver said, referring to a document issued to long-haul truckers by Tajikistan’s Transportation Ministry. “But even with the permits they won’t let us through.”

Turkmen border officials have purportedly told Tajik drivers that they might as well turn around and find another route, since they will not be allowed through. Meanwhile, large vehicles registered anywhere but Tajikistan are being let into Turkmenistan.

Khairullo Abidov, director of the Dushanbe-based Real Trans freight company, told Eurasianet that in addition to the 50 or so Tajik trucks stuck on either side of Turkmenistan, there are also some 15 Turkish trucks—whose manifests show Tajikistan as their final destination—not being permitted to leave Iran. 

“They would not even allow our trucks into the neutral zone, they are just waiting in the parking lot on the Uzbek side and the Iranian side,” Abidov said.

Transportation Ministry officials in Dushanbe have told Eurasianet that they have received no explanation from Turkmenistan for the cause of this blockade. A formal note requesting clarification has been submitted by the Foreign Ministry to the Turkmen Embassy in Dushanbe, but no response has been forthcoming.

“For a week, we have yet to receive a clear explanation from Turkmenistan, and so we are advising our drivers to go through [Kazakhstan and] Azerbaijan. The road is longer and more expensive. It depends on the drivers whether they want to wait or drive further,” one high-level ministry source said.

Abidov said that for now, he will bide his time. 

“But if the worst comes to the worse, then we will have to take our vehicles across the Caspian to Kazakhstan, and from there to Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. But that is an additional USD 1,200 for each truck,” he said.

The Transportation Ministry official told Eurasianet that one of the possibilities being considered in Dushanbe is that the situation has been instigated by Iran. Turkmen officials have told their Tajik colleagues that Iran is allowing only 40 trucks through their border daily, but that does not seem to explain why the Tajiks are being singled out for this treatment.

“We know perfectly well that they are letting through all vehicles except those from Tajikistan,” the ministry official said.

Relations between Tajikistan and Iran have fallen to an all-time low of late. With encouragement from Saudi Arabia, which has disbursed several dozen million dollars in aid to Dushanbe, the Tajik government has embarked on an often outlandish demonization campaign against Iran. 

In an interview in July, Saudi Arabia’s ambassador to Tajikistan, Abdulaziz ibn Muhammad al-Badi, boasted that by doling out USD 200 million in aid over the years, Riyadh had managed to squeeze Iran out of the country. In the same exchange, al-Badi indicated that he gave credence to Tajik state media claims that Iran is trying to lay the ground for an Islamic revolution in Tajikistan.

Most recently, Tajik officials have sought to imply that Iran was somehow involved in a hit-and-run attack in late July that left four foreign cyclists, including two Americans, dead. The killings were claimed by the Islamic State group. 

Whether suggestions that Iran may have somehow leaned on Turkmenistan to impose the blockade is part of a broader smear campaign, or if Tehran is engaging in reprisals, remains uncertain. 

Another theory is that Turkmenistan is adopting stricter security measures in response to a possible discovery of drugs being carried across the border. Tajikistan is believed by international drug enforcement officials to be a major hub for the trafficking of heroin originating in Afghanistan. 

One final, if implausible, scenario mooted in Dushanbe is that Turkmenistan has adopted this unfriendly policy in response to an incident on August 21 in which a young Turkmen woman died while waiting in a line at the Tajik consulate. Securing visas can entail months of wrangling and standing for endless hours in stuffy hot rooms, so the suggestion is that the woman may have succumbed to exhaustion. Tajik officials have said they think it unlikely this would have been enough to instigate a blockade, however.

Photo Credit: IRNA