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Russia views military base in Tajikistan as stability factor in region

Chief of the base’s Artillery Staff Alexander Levin noted that he situation in Afghanistan poses a threat both to the region’s stability and to international security

DUSHANBE, April 18. /TASS/. The joint actions by Russia’s 201st military base in Tajikistan and the Tajik security agencies are preventing the spread of international terrorism in Central Asia while the military base has become a restraining factor for forces seeking the region’s destabilization, Chief of the base’s Artillery Staff Alexander Levin said on Thursday.

"The joint actions by the Russian base, units of the Defense Ministry and other security structures of Tajikistan are becoming a guarantor of peace and stability in the region, an obstacle on the way of the spread of international terrorism and Islamist fundamentalism in the Central Asian region," he said at a roundtable discussion on the state and prospects of military and military-technical cooperation between Russia and Tajikistan.

"This has started to play a more significant role at a time when the NATO coalition forces are edging out a part of Afghan militants to the north of the country, towards Tajikistan’s southern borders," he said.

The situation in Afghanistan poses a threat both to the region’s stability and to international security, he noted.

"Extremism, be it religious or political, and, all the more so, religious and political simultaneously, is a problem not only for Central Asian states but for the entire world," he explained, adding that in this situation the presence of the Russian military base in Tajikistan is a restraining factor for third forces seeking destabilization in the region.

The Russian military base’s representative stressed that Russia was providing assistance to Tajikistan in personnel training and was suppling munitions, armament and military hardware for Tajikistan’s armed forces as part of bilateral military and technical cooperation. He recalled that in February 2019, Russia transferred air defense systems worth $9 million to Tajikistan on a gratuitous basis and in December 2017 handed over small arms, artillery guns and the armor, helicopters, communications means and air defense systems, medical and topographic equipment.

The military base’s representative named the joint reconstruction and further use of the Ainy aerodrome in the interests of the armed forces of Russia and Tajikistan and the training of specialists on the premises of the Nurek optical and electronic center for space research as the promising areas of bilateral military and technical cooperation.

The 201st military base stationed in Tajikistan is Russia’s largest military facility outside its borders. It is stationed in Dushanbe and Bokhtar. Under the agreement signed in October 2012, the Russian military base will stay in Tajikistan until 2042.