Pakistan and Tajikistan have agreed on extending their bilateral relations in different sectors, particularly trade, tourism and aviation.
Different matters related to mutual cooperation were discussed in a meeting between Advisor to Prime Minister on Aviation Sardar Mehtab Ahmad Khan and Ambassador of Tajikistan in Pakistan Sherali Jononov on 22nd August.
Tajikistan officially the “Republic of Tajikistan” is a hilly landlocked sovereign country in Central Asia. The area has been ruled by numerous empires and dynasties, including the Achaemenid Empire, Hephthalite Empire, Samanid Empire, Mongol Empire, Timurid dynasty, and the Russian Empire. As a result of the breakup of the Soviet Union, Tajikistan became an independent nation in 1991 after civil war. Now with an estimated 8 million people in 2013, it is the 98th most populous country and with an area covering 143,100 km2 (55,300 sq mi), it is the 96th largest country in the world in terms of area.
Tajikistan consists of 4 administrative divisions and it is bordered by Afghanistan to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east. It is covered by mountains of the Pamir range and more than fifty percent of the country is over 3,000 meters (9,800 ft) above sea level. Tajikistan is a presidential republic consisting of four provinces. Mountains cover more than 90% of the country. It has a transition economy that is dependent on aluminum and cotton production, its economy is the 126th largest in the world in terms of purchasing power and136th largest in terms of nominal GDP.
Pakistan’s embassy opens in Dushanbe in 1993. The Republic of Tajikistan opened its diplomatic mission in Pakistan four years later in 1997. In 1997, Tajikistan’s consular offices started functioning in Islamabad and Karachi. By the end of 2005, inauguration of the Tajik Embassy in Islamabad.
Why Tajkistan is important for energy monger Pakistan?
Tajikistan is the world’s third largest producer of hydroelectric power after the US and Russia. The hydropower potential of Tajikistan is much higher than its domestic requirements; currently installed generation capacity is 5244 MW. Estimated hydropower potential of the country is 527 billion KWt/hours (5.27 million MWt/hours) of electricity per year. Tajikistan’s hydropower potential far exceeds its own domestic requirements which can help meet the energy requirement of the region but it is currently using around 4-5% of its total potential. Tajikistan is world’s third largest producer of hydroelectricity which accounts for 76% of its total energy output. Inception of new hydropower projects would not only fulfill the electricity need of country but also of the region including Pakistan.6 On the other hand, Pakistan and Tajikistan have signed more than 30 agreements, protocols and MoUs to extend cooperation in the fields of energy, communications, insurance, investments and industry, air transport, banking and financial, agricultural and food industry, transport and constructions of roads, science and technology, education, health, tourism and culture on the basis of mutual equality, and increased the level of trade. And both countries also agreed to cooperate in the field of explorations, extraction and processing of gas and oil products.
Ethnic persecution in Pakistan
Tajiks in Pakistan have inhabited north western valleys which lay adjacent to Tajikistan since ancient time, though many are not counted as ethnic Tajik's due to census irregularities. Small numbers of Tajiks had travelled to what is now Pakistan as technocrats, bureaucrats, soldiers, traders, scientists, architects, teachers, theologians and Sufis during the Islamic Sultanates and Mughal Empire and settled permanently. There also large number of Tajiks from Afghanistan that have settled in Pakistan permanently. Many Tajik refugees from Tajikistan lived in Pakistan and some of them returned to Tajikistan. At least 7.3% of Afghans in Pakistan are ethnic Tajiks. Additionally, there is a sizeable community of Chinese Tajiks in Pakistan.