TAJIKISTAN URGES UNITED EFFORTS AGAINST TERRORISM

ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow
30 Mar 04

DUSHANBE

Confronted with increasing threats of terrorism, countries of the
Central Asian region should unite efforts and work out a clear action
programme in line with both bilateral and regional agreements, the
secretary of the Security Council of Tajikistan, Amirqul Azimov, said
in an interview with an ITAR-TASS correspondent commenting on the
latest events in neighbouring Uzbekistan today.

“We are deeply shocked at the actions of the terrorists who
jeopardized peace and stability in the region. We sympathize with the
innocent victims of those madmen. We also realize that if neighbours
have troubles we cannot sleep (peacefully) in our house (either),”
Azimov said.

“We cannot consider that if this happened in Uzbekistan, then
Uzbekistan itself has to tackle the problem,” he added.

At the same time, Azimov says the latest terrorist acts showed that we
are becoming “the clamp” (Russian: fiksator) of these kind of
events. (In fact), efficient proactive measures are needed, (he says).

It is necessary to use more effectively the mechanisms of such
regional structures as the CSTO (Collective Security Treaty
Organization of Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan
and Russia) and the SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organization) and
others.

Azimov says it is time to proceed from the tactics of combating
terrorists to the destruction of terrorism itself, and for this it is
necessary to identify its (terrorism’s) nature and the reason for
(its) emergence.