Russia to continue helping Tajikistan protect border with Afghanistan

ITAR-TASS news agency
10 Dec 04

Moscow, 10 December: If necessary, Tajikistan’s power-wielding
structures “can always count on all-round help and support from our
military base and the operational border groups of Russia’s Federal
Security Service that are being set up there,” Russian Defence
Minister Sergey Ivanov said at a meeting with representatives of the
military-diplomatic corps today.

He noted that the collective security system definitely takes account
of the drug threat emanating from Afghanistan. “We take account of the
presence of this threat and help the border and anti-drug structures
with all accessible means to create a barrier to drug trafficking in
that country,” Ivanov said. In particular, he continued, one of the
main tasks of the Russian troops’ military base in Tajikistan, which
the 201st Motor-Rifle Division was turned into this year, is to
protect border posts on the Tajik-Afghan border. According to Ivanov,
such measures are needed because, starting from 1992, the Russian
border guards confiscated over 29 tonnes of narcotic substances and
prevented at least 1,500 attempts at armed breakthroughs across
Afghanistan’s border into the countries of Central Asia.

As well as Tajikistan, Russian service personnel are present in
Georgia and Armenia, where the Group of Russian Troops in the
Transcaucasus is deployed, as well as in Kyrgyzstan, where “we are
continuing to actively develop the air base in Kant”. “These
formations are most important elements in the overall system of
ensuring the security both of Russia on its southern borders, and the
collective security of countries participating in the Collective
Security Treaty Organization and the whole of the CIS,” Ivanov said.