FM Zarif in Tajikistan to Attend ECO Meeting

Date: 16 April 2018 - 22:04

News ID: ۵۱۸۵۶

TEHRAN (Dispatches) -- Iran’s Foreign Minister Muhammad Javad Zarif headed to Tajikistan on Monday at the head of a political delegation to attend the 23rd ECO Ministerial Meeting in Dushanbe.
Zarif is also to hold talks with senior Tajik officials and discuss ways to expand mutual cooperation, Foreign Ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi said.
This is the second visit of Zarif to Tajikistan within the past few months. In November 2017, the Iranian top diplomat visited the Central Asian country for the first time over the past couple of years.
Relations between the two countries took a nosedive in late December 2015 on the issue of the Islamic Movement of Tajikistan. While the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) was considered by the Tajik government as a banned party, its leader Muhiddin Kabiri, who lives in exile, was invited to an international conference in Tehran, and this outraged the Central Asian state.
Tajik authorities said despite the fact that Kabiri was accused of organizing riots in September 2015, Iran had invited him to the International Conference of Islamic Unity while he was seated next to the head of Tajikistan’s state-backed Council of Islamic Ulema and other members of the official delegation from Tajikistan.
Informed sources say the tension between the two countries goes way back to earlier disputes, including over assets of jailed Iranian billionaire Babak Zanjani in Tajikistan which is refusing to repatriate to the Islamic Republic.
Observers hope Zarif’s visit to Dushanbe would help mend ties between the two countries which speak the same language.