Tajik Leader Receives Outgoing German Envoy
Excerpt from report by privately-owned Tajik news agency Asia- Plus website
Dushanbe, 16 July: Tajik President Emomali Rahmon and the German ambassador to Tajikistan, Rainer Muller, who is completing his diplomatic mission in Tajikistan, discussed the current state of Tajik-German relations today.
“I told the president that Germany has been, remains and will be one of the main partners of Tajikistan. Germany was the first among western European countries to open its embassy in Dushanbe and the first European country which built its embassy here,” the envoy told journalists.
The diplomat said that the Tajik president thanked Germany for the support being provided to Tajikistan, specially noting implementation of the project to repair distribution facilities of the Norak hydroelectric station.
“This is one of the projects being implemented by Germany in Tajikistan, and it is very important,” Muller said.
The envoy also recalled that in line with the German Foreign Ministry’s instructions, the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GTZ) carried out a research on building hydroelectric power stations on the river of Zarafshon.
“According to the research, the construction of hydroelectric power stations on the river of Zarafshon will cause no harm to the irrigation system of Uzbekistan. We hope that the results of this research will contribute to [persuading] Uzbekistan not to resist the construction of Tajik hydroelectric power stations on [the river of] Zarafshon,” the envoy said.
He also said that Emomali Rahmon intended to visit Belgium and Germany, adding that the Tajik president handed a letter over [to him] inviting the German leader to visit Tajikistan.
Answering a question regarding bilateral economic relations, Muller said that the two countries “had excellent political and good economic relations”.
[Passage omitted: the envoy did his best to attract German businesses to Tajikistan]
Originally published by Asia-Plus news agency website, Dushanbe, in Russian 16 Jul 08.
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