In the afternoon, President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon met with the President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan Muhammad Ashraf Ghani.
The meeting, which is the first for the Heads of State of the neighboring countries after the election of Muhammad Ashraf Ghani to the post of President of Afghanistan, addressed a wide range of issues related to the development of friendly, neighborly relations and mutually beneficial cooperation.
Much attention was paid to the development of cooperation in the fields of politics, security, economy and trade, energy and transport.
The sides expressed satisfaction with the normative legal basis of cooperation between the two countries, consisting of 80 bilateral agreements. At the same time, it was stressed that the effective implementation of the signed agreements is necessary for the relevant authorities of the two countries to become more active.
There took place a useful discussion on the implementation of beneficial regional projects for the construction of railway Tajikistan-Afghanistan-Turkmenistan, China-Tajikistan-Kyrgyzstan-Afghanistan-Iran, 500 KW electricity power transmission line CASA-1000 and the gas pipeline Afghanistan-Tajikistan.
Moreover, special attention was paid to transit trade agreement among Tajikistan, Afghanistan, and Pakistan.
The Tajik side confirmed its willingness with regards to retraining specialists in various fields for Afghanistan on preferential terms. As noted, only this year for Afghan students were allocated 250 scholarships in higher educational institutions of Tajikistan and this number will increase further in the coming years.
Particular attention was paid to strengthening cooperation between the structures of defense, security and other relevant bodies of the two countries to protect the stability of the region.
Constructive conversation took place on cooperation in the framework of international and regional organizations, including the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.