Russia rebuffs border troops from Tajik-Afghan

Dushanbe, Mar 4: Russia has no plans to re-deploy border guards to the Tajik-Afghan border, Russian Ambassador to Tajikistan Yuri Popov has said.

"A broader basing of Russian border guards on the Tajik-Afghan border is not on the agenda, and neither Moscow nor Dushanbe will be raising the issue," the Russian diplomat told a magazine yesterday reacting to media reports on the on-going Russian-Tajik border cooperation talks in Dushanbe.

"Russia and Tajikistan are coordinating a draft agreement on border issue cooperation at the expert level, with the view of optimising the parameters, forms and guidelines for interaction in this important sphere," he noted.

The term of the inter-government agreement, signed in 2005 and ratified by the parliaments of the two countries, expires in Apr 2011.

The document regulated the conditions of the functioning in Tajikistan of a group of border troops of Russia's Federal Security Service, represented by a small group of advisers after Russia's withdrawal of its border troops from Tajikistan in the summer of 2005.

PTI (Itar-Tass)