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Armed clashes in Tajikistan entail no destabilization in that country — CSTO chief

Nikolay Bordyuzha doesn’t think it was a serious phenomenon that might entail any negative developments in Tajikistan

MOSCOW, September 18. /TASS/. Armed clashes between Tajikistan’s government forces and supporters of rebel General Abdukhalim Nazarzoda were not an attempted coup and entailed no destabilization of the situation in that country, Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) Nikolay Bordyuzha said on Friday.

"I wouldn’t dramatize the situation with that criminal gang that has recently been eliminated. Generally speaking I see what has happened. But I don’t think we can say those actions, including taken by General Nazarzoda, were an attempted coup or an attempt to destabilize the situation in Tajikistan. I don’t think it was a serious phenomenon that might entail any negative developments in Tajikistan. The situation there is rather stable," he said in an interview with the Rossiya-24 television channel.

He said "forces that cannot put up with their failure in that country" were still active in Tajikistan. "In the 1990s, the Tajik united opposition thought they were having Tajikistan on a string," Bordyuzha said, adding that the terrorist group Islamic State was strong in Central Asia too.

On September 4, General Abdukhalim Nazarzoda, Tajikistan’s former deputy defense minister, together with his supporters staged two terrorist attacks in the Tajik capital city Dushanbe and in Vakhdat, in the country’s west.

Nazarzoda seized a large amount of weapons and hid in the Ramit Gorge. More than 100 terrorists have been detained in an anti-terrorist operation that followed the attacks.

On Wednesday, Tajikistan’s authorities confirmed that the rebel general and several members of his entourage were dead. The anti-terrorist operation to eliminate the gang under the former deputy defense minister ended on September 16.

Over the years of the civil war in Tajikistan in 1992-1995, Nazarzoda, dubbed Khalim, was a field commander of the Tajik armed opposition. After a peace deal was signed in June 1997, Nazarzoda was commissioned to the Tajik army under the programme of reintegration of former opposition gunmen. In 2014, he was promoted to the rank of Major General and appointed deputy defence minister. He was dismissed from the post by President Emomali Rakhmov on Friday, September 5, for "committing a crime."