DUSHANBE (TCA) — Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon signed a Joint Statement on expansion and strengthening of cooperation between Tajikistan and Afghanistan following their talks on May 10.
Ghani arrived in Tajikistan for a two-day visit.
The sides expressed satisfaction with the current state of cooperation between Tajikistan and Afghanistan in political, economic, social and cultural spheres, the Tajik president’s press service said.
During the meeting it was stressed that in 2013 the trade turnover between the two countries amounted to $170 million, which is an insufficient indicator.
Tajikistan last year exported to Afghanistan 1.2 billion kWh of electricity and for the first four months of this year the figure reached 250 million kWh.
The sides emphasized that the implementation of projects in the fields of energy and the development of transport and transit infrastructure, the regional project CASA-1000 will increase the supply of electricity to Afghanistan. Tajikistan is also interested in the construction of Tajikistan-Afghanistan-Turkmenistan railway.
The sides spoke for revitalizing the Joint Commission on trade, economic, technical and cultural cooperation.
The Afghan and Tajik leaders also discussed strengthening bilateral cooperation in the fight against terrorism, extremism, drug smuggling, and transnational organized crime.
In Tajikistan, the Afghan President will take part in the ceremony to launch the CASA-1000 electricity transmission project. The $1.17 billion CASA-1000 power project is to be inaugurated in Dushanbe by the leaders of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan on May 12. The project aims to export electricity from hydropower plants in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
