Under Secretary (XP): Good evening friends and welcome to today’s media briefing. To brief you on the various engagements that the Vice President had today, we have with us Secretary (East) Shri Sanjay Singh, Ambassador Asith Bhattacharjee and Joint Secretary (Eurasia) Shri Ajay Bisaria. The briefing would begin with brief opening remarks by Secretary (East), following which the floor will be open for a few questions.
Secretary (East) (Shri Sanjay Singh): Thank you very much. I will not give a ‘brief’ opening statement, I will give you a detailed opening statement; and I will bring your attention to the media statement which was made by the Hon. Vice President. I hope all of you have got a copy of it. I will just highlight some points from that.
He said he had a very productive meeting on a one-to-one basis with His Excellency President Rahmon followed by very constructive delegation-level talks. He also said, ‘I emphasized India’s commitment to our strategic partnership’ and that ‘We have agreed to strengthen our relations further in the energy sector, IT, health, and education and in the establishment of small and micro industries in Tajikistan’. He also talked about discussions on cooperation in countering cross-border terrorism. He talked about the Connect Central Asia Policy which has been launched by the Government.
Both of them took stock of the considerable progress in various areas of cooperation and expressed satisfaction. They also discussed regional security issues and the situation in Afghanistan. He congratulated Tajikistan for becoming the 159th member of the WTO. He told you that he would be visiting a hydroelectric power station tomorrow, and the Tajik Technical University the day after.
Let me also give you further details beyond this. The one-to-one restricted meeting lasted around forty minutes, and then we had the delegation level talks. It was reiterated that this high-level visit by the Hon. Vice President was part of our efforts to renew contacts at regular intervals, high-level contacts, which is in keeping with our strategic partnership.
In the Tajik delegation today – the Indian delegation you know because you have met all of them – at the delegation level talks you had Foreign Minister, Energy and Industry Minister, Education Minister, Trade and Economy Minister, Health Minister, Agriculture Minister, Culture Minister. This reflects the various areas in which we have cooperation with Tajikistan which is multifaceted.
In the delegation-level talks, in addition to what President Rahmon has told you at his press conference he expressed satisfaction with the state of bilateral relations, which he said were marked by cooperation in a number of areas and has enormous opportunities for expansion. He said that he had visited India in the year marking 20th anniversary of our diplomatic relations, his visit was very good. And he remarked that the Vice President’s visit would bring a higher level of cooperation because the Vice President had got along with him – something which is very welcome in our region which is rare. So, it was a good omen for the visit.
The President emphasized that our ties are brotherly. We have got good international cooperation. We have cooperation in counterterrorism, we have security cooperation. We have a number of joint projects. And he expressed satisfaction at the cooperation in capacity building. He invited Indian investments in the areas of cotton, agriculture, mining. He pointed out that Tajikistan has enormous reserves of silver and precious stones, which is something that he felt Indian industry could source from Tajikistan. He talked about energy, hydrocarbons and other areas in which there could be cooperation. He also talked about regional cooperation focused on Afghanistan.
The Hon. Vice President in his discussion said that Tajikistan was a very close friend and neighbour. We have historical ties with Tajikistan which has seen various cultures and various religions over its long history, such as Buddhism, Zoroastrianism, Islam. And this is reflected in the Museum of Antiquity, which some of you had seen yesterday, the various aspects of Tajik civilization. We have diverse areas of cooperation, and we have security cooperation as well as cooperation against terrorism.
Hon. Vice President emphasized that we should work in promoting cooperation which would be taken forward by the private sectors of the two countries because this would be very useful. He also talked about Tajikistan’s WTO accession which would help create better conditions for more cooperation. He emphasized that we stand committed to developmental cooperation with Tajikistan, and are ready to create another IT centre in the Tajik Technical University, which he would be visiting on Wednesday morning. We are also to put up an Entrepreneurship Development Centre, certain small medical units, we are also going to be cooperating with Tajikistan in setting up micro, small and medium enterprises in Tajikistan.
We have considerable cooperation in capacity building. We also sought Tajik help for cotton in India because Tajikistan has considerable expertise in growing cotton, and this is something that we can use. We have very good cooperation in the multilateral fora and the United Nations, and for the expansion of United Nations Security Council.
Thereafter, Hon. Vice-President visited the Majlis-e-Namandyagon which is the Lowe House of the Majlis or the Parliament of Tajikistan. He was welcomed by Chairman Zuhurov and his colleagues who are from the Parliamentary Friendship Groups and heads of various Committees. It is interesting that Chairman Zuhurov talked about civilisational links based on the Avesta, the Rig Veda, and ties go back to that era. They talked about Rumi, Rudaki, Dehlavi, and in modern time by the relationship between Tursunzade and Rabindranath Tagore, and obviously Bedil.
He said that Tajikistan and he himself are very happy with India’s growing stature as an emerging economy, and that Indian Parliament was a great beacon of cooperation for the Tajik Parliament and it wished to increase cooperation, and (that) they were exchanging a lot of delegations to India.
Hon. Vice President did mention that it is true that we belong to a common cultural area and the visit to the Museum of Antiquity posited that. We have strong, stable relations. We have elevated them to a strategic partnership during President Rahmon’s visit in September last year. We have regular exchanges between our Parliaments. He emphasized that India is wedded to democracy and that Indian Parliament is ready to strengthen the bonds of friendship between our two countries.
In the afternoon, Prime Minister Akil Akilov called on the Hon. Vice-President, and he praised India’s emergence as a major economy. He emphasized that bilateral ties have been elevated to a new level. He talked about the renovation of Varzob-1, Pamir Energy. He thanked India for developmental assistance, and also talked about the IT centre in the Tajik Technical University from which nearly 600 trainees have already been trained, and when we renew the centre I think it will create a greater capacity in Tajikistan in the information technology field.
He talked about trade and economic links and invited Indian participation, like the President did, in mining and pharmaceuticals. But he also talked about cooperation in cotton, wool and leather sectors which Tajikistan has enormous raw material; and said that Indian industry could utilize the three new free trade zones that are going to be put up by Tajikistan.
The Hon. Vice President emphasized that the MoU signed by FICCI with its counterpart and that we must get our entrepreneurs together and work towards utilizing the opportunities and the potential that exists.
He also said that we must have regular meetings of the Joint Working Group on Terrorism, we should strengthen air connectivity, and facilitate visas for businessmen which would help our trade and industry. And the Tajiks said they were working hard on these two areas.
I would not go over everything that Foreign Minister said in his call on the Hon. Vice President, but it is interesting he said we have the same common vision and common fight against terrorism. He said that every Tajik of a certain age has been accustomed to Indian cinema, generation grew up on it, he mentioned. And he said Tajikistan is like Switzerland, only more pristine and has 13,000 glaciers and a thousand pure rivers running out of it. It is a fantastic locale for film shooting and he invited Indian Bollywood and other Indian centres to come and make films in Tajikistan. And he said he will try and make sure that business visas and visas for films will be facilitated.
The final meeting today was with Trade and Economy Minister Mr. Sharif Rahimzode who has just visited India in February for the meeting of the Intergovernmental Commission. This was the seventh meeting where a number of projects were discussed to take forward and implement the vision of Prime Minister and President Rahmon for the strategic partnership. He had had very a good meeting with Commerce, Industry and Textiles Minister, MoS Commerce, and others.
He said one of the things that Tajikistan is looking for is markets in India and they are working on an agreement on transit to India, and he sees the market as very promising and he will be working on seeing a passage of transit to India. And he welcomed exchange of business delegations, and thanked India for WTO support.
I will end there and I will request Ambassador, if he has some other points which he would like to just add, to give local colour to this briefing.
I thank you.
Ambassador to Tajikistan (Shri Asith Kumar Bhattacharjee): Thank you, Secretary, in fact you have been so exhaustive that it was locally colourful, if I may put it so, more colourful than I can say the thing. But what I could do perhaps is interject when there are questions.
Secretary (East): Okay. And Ajay is our expert who has already briefed you in Delhi. Would you like to add something?
Joint Secretary (Eurasia) (Shri Ajay Bisaria): No.
Secretary (East): Alright. Okay, the floor is yours.
Question: What tangible progress was made since September 2012 visit of the President in strategic areas?
Secretary (East): Tangible progress now is that we have identified a locale for a second set of an IT centre, we have a partner; we also have a partner for the medical centre that we are setting up in southern Tajikistan which has made considerable progress. I think Joint Secretary (ERS) briefed you on that in Delhi. There is progress in other areas of capacity building that we have tried to put into place, the various areas that were discussed during President Rahmon’s visit. I think we are quite satisfied with the developments that have been there since then.
Question: Over the last two days?
Secretary (East): The last two days has been a method of good opportunity, rather today has been a good opportunity to take stock of our relationship in the multifaceted areas of cooperation that we have. And after seeing the progress that has been made, we are quite satisfied.
Ambassador might like to say something on this. He is the one who has been working on it.
Ambassador to Tajikistan: I am going back to your first question. There is one very important tangible progress which has been made and that is we have assisted Tajikistan to join the WTO as the 159th member. We are members of the WTO, now they are members of the WTO. So, it assists in our bilateral trade and economic relations. That is one very tangible progress. And this request has been coming down from 2006 visit and it has taken Tajikistan a long time to negotiate with the countries to get the accession to WTO.
Question: My question is to Mr. Sanjay Singh. I am intrigued this morning when the Vice President was making the statement, he used the words strategic partnership and concern for counterterrorism and security; and also in your briefing you have also mentioned these words at least five times. Can you relieve me of my intrigue and tell me it has something to do with the coming year when NATO leaves? And do you think that our responsibility of problems is going to cease for both Tajikistan and us? Let us face it. We all know that there is going to be some trouble there. And if there is trouble in Afghanistan after NATO forces leave, we are going to be affected. Will you agree with that assessment?
Secretary (East): I am generally an optimistic person and I have a positive outlook towards the future. And we have and Afghanistan has built considerable capacity over the last decade or so. And we are very happy to cooperate with Afghanistan in being able to create a stable and prosperous polity. I think a stable and prosperous polity is required in the region not only in Afghanistan but everywhere because the main requirements for us in India and other countries of the region is development and prosperity because we are all developing countries, and we have to bring the gains from development to our people. So, while we are cautiously optimistic, we also work and create, in a way, partnerships for any eventuality that may or may not come up.
Question: The Vice President mentioned this Connect Central Asia Policy which has started
…(Inaudible)… Under this programme which he mentioned to President Rahmon today, are there any tangible outcomes of it yet? Have we decided on any areas because there were four points that the programme started with – the commerce, connectivity – because we agreed to improve connectivity but the flights to Dushanbe never really happened.
Secretary (East): Thank you very much for the question. There is a very good address given by our Minister of State for External Affairs Mr. E. Ahamed in Bishkek at the India-Central Asia Conference or seminar that was organised by Ajay last year in July, and since Ajay is the architect of the Connect Central Asia Policy, perhaps he will be able to do a better briefing. So, may I request him to come in here and talk about it?
Joint Secretary (ERS): Sure. Connect Central Asia, as we have been talking in the briefings, was a conceptual idea of proactively increasing our engagement with Central Asia. It had a number of points, about 12 of them, apart from a few flagship projects. Let me tell you the state of health of flagship projects which we announced at that stage. Apart from the IT centre of excellence which we will announce soon and which will be set up here, a flagship idea was a Central Asia E-Network. And we have just gone to the stage of issuing a tender for it, and we expect to roll this out very soon within the next year or so, which will be a programme based on a hub in New Delhi and spokes in all five Central Asian capitals, and able to deliver telemedicine and tele-education with backend support of state-of-the-art hospitals in India, with backend support of universities and to be able to deliver this. So, this is the stage we have reached of completely designing the project and now it is going to roll out.
We are talking of a Central Asia University, we are talking of one in Bishkek, and we are in an advance stage of discussions with Kyrgyzstan for developing this university. Medical centres are what we are also talking of. We are trying to find the right business models. For Tajikistan we had the idea of urgent care centres which we will roll out. So, the idea was that we announced a policy which was a conceptual framework of increasing engagement. Within it we have a number of flagship projects which you will see them rolling out in the next year or so.
Question: Do you see any Iran’s role in this Central Asia programme?
Joint Secretary (ERS): The Connect Central Asia Policy is about India’s role in Central Asia. So, that is what I am going to talk about. I am not going to talk on behalf of Iran. But since you have mentioned Iran, one of the ideas of Connect Central Asia is connectivity, physical surface connectivity, and one of the elements is the North-South Corridor, which uses the Bandar Abbas and the territory of Iran to develop a connection with Central Asia. We are promoting that, as also Chabahar Port in Iran which is also being used along with trans-Afghan routes. So, that is where Iran comes in.
Question: In the Azerbaijan, do you think you can use their ports as well? Azerbaijan
…(Inaudible)… Iran. Is it a part of the Central Asia Connect?
Joint Secretary (ERS): Certainly. The North-South Corridor which we have been talking about goes north from Bandar Abbas to Bandar Anzali, and then to Astara in Azerbaijan, and thence through the Caspian Sea to Astrakhan in Russia. So, Azerbaijan is very much part of the North-South Corridor Project. It is a signatory to this, and in fact the next meeting of the coordination council is expected in Baku in the month of May.
Secretary (East): If I may add to that, there is a railway line from Bandar Abbas to a place called Rasht, and the missing link is from Rasht to Astara which is about 180 kilometres. So, if you could build that railway line from Rasht to Astara, then you would have connectivity from Astara to St. Petersburg. So, the challenge is to build that missing link. And Ajay is trying very hard, along with our friends in the Ministry of Commerce, that at the meeting in Azerbaijan we would all agree on building that link so that we would have direct connectivity.
Question: What sort of terrain is that from Astara? Is it plains?
Secretary (East): No, it is not plains; it is part of the mountainous area of North Iran.
Joint Secretary (ERS): In fact this is the link within Iran. But after that, to the point in Azerbaijan, it is through the Caspian Sea and then from the city of Astrakhan in southern Russia is through the Russian railway network.
Question: As a corollary to an earlier question, the Vice President mentioned his extensive talks on Afghanistan post NATO withdrawal.
…(Inaudible)…
Secretary (East): He mentioned that he had talks with President Rahmon on regional security issues, and the situation in Afghanistan is of prime importance.
Question: Post the withdrawal, should we expect a departure of the strategy that we have been using over deploying in Afghanistan or should we continue on the same?
Secretary (East): I would not like to speculate on what will happen once one year ends.
Question: In view of the next year’s pullout, was there a request from Tajikistan to train more military personnel, or did India offer to train more?
Secretary (East): I see no connection.
Question: As regards the military men whom we are training, was there a request to train more? There are officers being trained in the Indian Military Academy.
Secretary (East): We will continue with our programme.
Question: Does India plan to offer its assistance in identification of probable oil and gas reserves in this country?
Secretary (East): First you assure me that there are oil and gas reserves! Having said that, I will say that yes, we have been told that there are oil and gas reserves in Tajikistan. I think it is an early date. It would first need prospecting and thereafter exploiting it. Now, we are at a very early stage. We have been told that this is an area where we can have cooperation. And since India is looking for oil and gas assets around the world, I see no reason why we should not do so in Tajikistan also in due course.
Question: Is uranium is available in this country?
Secretary (East): I did not know that there was uranium in Tajikistan. Is there, Ambassador?
Ambassador to Tajikistan: Yes, there is.
Secretary (East): Okay, I am sorry, I have been educated and thereby I have answered your question.
Question: But Ambassador may like to add something on it.
Ambassador to Tajikistan: If I can be categorical, if you ask as of today, we have not pursued this.
Under Secretary (XP): Thank you very much, Sir, and thank you friends for your patience. With that we come to the close of this media briefing.
(Concluded)
Dushanbe
April 14, 2013
