In early July 2011, the Speaker of Russia’s State Duma, Boris Gryzlov, made a statement to the Russian media concerning unresolved issues in military cooperation between Russia and Tajikistan. Gryzlov criticized Tajikistan’s alleged inability to protect its own border with Afghanistan and to stop drug trafficking from Afghanistan to Russia. The statement provoked vigorous discussions between experts and politicians from both sides.
Gryzlov is one of the leaders of United Russia and his statement was perceived by experts as the position of the Russian presidential administration. He proposed to start fighting drug trafficking on locations distant from Russia. Gryzlov claimed that Tajikistan is incapable of protecting its long border with Afghanistan on its own, and that Russian border forces should return to the border. According to Gryzlov, drug trafficking from Afghanistan to Russia through Tajikistan has increased “by many times” after the withdrawal of Russian border forces from Tajikistan in 2005.
Russian border forces were protecting the 1,300 kilometer border between Tajikistan and Afghanistan from the breakdown of the Soviet Union until 2005. After the withdrawal of its border forces, Russia keeps 60 advisors for the border forces only. They provide support for capacity building in Tajikistan’s border forces. Russia also maintains a military base in Tajikistan containing 7,000 service personnel.
Gryzlov proposed to use labor migration as a bargaining chip in negotiations with Tajikistan. In his opinion, Russia should restrict or completely block labor migration from Tajikistan if Tajikistan would refuse the return of Russian border troops to the Tajik-Afghan border. As a first step, Gryzlov proposed to introduce a visa regime between Russia and Tajikistan.
Gryzlov’s statement touched upon a highly sensitive issue for Tajikistan. According to unofficial data, over one million of Tajikistan’s able-bodied population has migrated to Russia for work, out of a total population of seven million. Remittances from labor migrants account for about 40 percent of Tajikistan’s GDP. Close to every family in Tajikistan has at least one labor migrant member and up to 60 percent of rural households rely on remittances from Russia as their major source of income. Consequently, most experts predict that the expulsion of Tajik labor migrants from Russia would result in a serious social downturn in Tajikistan. Some analysts go even further, predicting the collapse of Emomali Rahmon’s regime in case of a Russian ban on labor migration from Tajikistan.
Importantly, Gryzlov made the statement after several recent unsuccessful visits of high level Russian officials to Tajikistan, including the Head of Russia’s Presidential Administration Sergey Naryshkin, Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov and the Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Nikolay Bordyuzha. According to experts, all these high-level officials sought to persuade President Rahmon to agree on expanded military cooperation with Russia.
Gryzlov’s announcement was perceived by experts and politicians in Tajikistan as an act of pressure. For instance, the independent analyst Nurali Davlatov claims that the statement constitutes simple blackmail from the Russian authorities, and that the Russian government is trying not only to persuade its Tajik counterparts to agree to a Russian presence on the Tajik-Afghan border, but also to solve other unsettled issues like agreeing to the deployment of a Russian military base at the military airport Ainy not far from Dushanbe. As a way out of the situation, Davlatov proposes that Tajikistan’s authorities should start looking for other destinations for its labor migrants.
At the same time, Tajik officials stubbornly adhere to their position concerning Russia’s presence on the Tajik-Afghan border. They believe that the state border should be protected only by Tajikistan’s border forces. Otherwise, Tajikistan would be considered a failed state. The position was reconfirmed by a recent statement by the Tajikistan’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Hamrokhon Zarifi. The Minister ruled out any possibility of a return of Russian border troops to Tajikistan.
Moreover, Zarifi raised the question of payment for Russian basing rights in Tajikistan. According to the current agreement on military cooperation between Tajikistan and Russia, Tajikistan allows the deployment of a Russian military base without any rent payment. Tajikistan now wants to reconsider the agreement and demand payment from Russia.
In sum, Russia is seeking a rapid resolution of issues related to military cooperation in Tajikistan in light of the increased influence of the U.S., China and Iran in the Central Asian region. Therefore, experts believe that the Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s visit to Tajikistan planned for September 2011 is aimed to speed up the process of solving all the outstanding issues between the two countries.