FEB. 10 2017 (The Conway Bulletin) — >> So what has happened? I’ve read that a commercial flight has flown between Dushanbe and Tashkent
>> Yes, that’s right. This was the first commercial flight between the Tajik and Uzbek capital since 1992. In 1992, Tajikistan was just tipping over into a civil war when commercial flights were scrapped but they were never re-instated after the war petered out a few years later. By this time Emomali Rakhmon had secured himself as the president of Tajikistan, a position he still holds. Uzbekistan was then ruled by Islam Karimov, who died in September last year. The two men loathed each other, Karimov was notoriously cantankerous and Rakhmon is quarrelsome.
>> So, the row was entirely personal?
>> Much of it was but there was also a macro-political and economic angle too. Tajikistan has long-planned to build a dam at Rogun in the Pamir Mountains. This was a Soviet-era plan that never moved from the drawing board into reality. Tajikistan, though, needed to generate more electricity and has been looking for backers for years. And this irritated Uzbekistan and Karimov who argued that the dam would damage water flows downstream where Uzbek cotton fields needed to be irrigated. At times the row became so heated that it threatened to spill over into war that may have dragged in neighbours.
>> What has changed?
>> Karimov’s death in September changed Uzbekistan’s foreign policy outlook. The new president Shavkat Mirziyoyev has been far more positive in promoting relations with Uzbekistan’s neighbours. This has included Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. The resumption of a commercial flight between the two capitals may feel a bit of a token gesture but it is actually a very significant step forward for bilateral relations. Rakhmon actually invited Mirziyoyev to Dushanbe for a bilateral meeting last month. This was something that would have been unimaginable under Karimov.
>> And now that flights have resumed, what can we expect?
>> The first flight was operated by Somon Air, a Tajik airline. It is likely that the airline will look to set up a regular service between the two cities. And just making that link, just having it there, is an important part of the heeling process for the region. It’s blighted by complex borders, thanks Stalin, and disparate pockets of ethnic groups, making travel links important. This is especially so between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Many of the people living in Uzbekistan are ethnic Tajiks. Previously, to travel between the two cities, people had to make tortuous road trips that would take days.
ENDS
Copyright ©The Conway Bulletin — all rights reserved
(News report from Issue No. 316, published on Feb. 10 2017)
