INTER-TAJIK TALKS MIGHT SHIFT TO MOSCOW.

Yesterday on the second day of the latest inter-Tajik talks in Ashgabat, Russian foreign minister Yevgeny Primakov offered to host negotiations in Moscow between Tajik president Imomali Rahmonov and United Tajik Opposition chairman Saidabdullo Nuri. Both Tajik delegations accepted the proposal, but UTO chief delegate Akbar Turanjozoda said that the Moscow meeting must be well prepared before setting its date.

Primakov also asked the UTO to refrain from bringing Tajik fighters from Afghanistan into Tajikistan. UTO vice chairman and chief delegate to the Ashgabat talks, Akbar Turanjozoda answered that the opposition may agree, but only if Moscow restrains the Dushanbe government’s military operations in Tavildara and elsewhere. The two issues are inseparable, Turanjozoda asserted. He said after the session that the Russian government seems poorly informed about the opposition’s goals, mistakenly assuming that the opposition seeks to establish an Islamic state. Turanjozoda expressed hope that he had persuaded Primakov that the opposition was not fundamentalist. (Interfax, Itar-Tass, July 10)

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