Austria will donate 150,000 doses of AstraZeneca vaccine against the coronavirus to the Central Asian states of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Foreign Minister Michael Linhart (ÖVP) conveyed this message on Saturday on the occasion of his visit to the Tajik capital Dushanbe. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the three countries in Austria had asked about vaccine donations. Linhart is currently traveling through the Central Asian states.
The total of 450,000 cans have now been released, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (BMEIA). Kyrgyzstan, where Linhart made the first visit of his six-day trip to Central Asia on Friday, will also be informed. Austria has so far donated around two million vaccine doses to countries in need, of which the lion’s share went to Iran (one million) and Bosnia-Herzegovina (500,000).
On the other hand, Turkmenistan, where the foreign minister will conclude his tour on Tuesday, will not come home. In the authoritarian and largely cut off country, there are officially no COVID diseases. At least no cases have been reported to the World Health Organization. Doubts about this representation are, however, appropriate, after all, measures have been taken in the past few months as are customary elsewhere to combat the coronavirus.
In the nine-million-inhabitant state of Tajikistan, led by long-term president Emomali Rachmon since 1994, a meeting with his counterpart Sirojiddin Muhriddin was on the agenda for Linhart on Saturday. The central topic will be the situation in neighboring Afghanistan, where the radical Islamist Taliban have been in charge since the withdrawal of US troops in late summer.
After the Taliban came to power, several former Soviet states want to strengthen the borders with Afghanistan. The expansion of the border fortifications in southern Tajikistan was recently accelerated.
These and other measures were decided in mid-September by the “Collective Security Treaty Organization” in Dushanbe. The members of the military alliance described the situation in Afghanistan as alarming in a final document of the meeting.
Russia announced at the time that it would strengthen its military base in Tajikistan with modern tanks. President Vladimir Putin spoke of “acute challenges and risks for the security of our countries”. The members are always ready to bring the “defense and political potential” of the military alliance to bear.
Russia and several Central Asian countries fear that militant Islamist Taliban fighters could invade former Soviet territory. They also warn of a strengthening of the Islamic State terrorist militia and of increasing arms and drug smuggling. The military alliance also called on all parties to the conflict in Afghanistan to negotiate with the mediation of China, Pakistan, Russia and the USA. There is no alternative to diplomacy, it said.
Shortly after the radical Islamists came to power, Tajikistan declared that it had only limited opportunities to take in Afghan refugees. At the beginning of September, Interior Minister Ramazon Hamro Rahimzoda complained to the state news agency Khovar that there was a lack of international support for the accommodation of Afghan refugees.
His country has designated areas for refugee reception, but international organizations have not provided any “practical support”. “That is why there is no way in Tajikistan to take in large numbers of refugees and asylum seekers,” he added.
The interior minister also said, according to the news agency, that Tajikistan “peacefully returned” 5,000 Afghan soldiers who fled during the radical Islamic Taliban’s takeover. Shortly before the Taliban’s victory, the government in Dushanbe had promised to accept 100,000 Afghan refugees. Shortly thereafter, however, she restricted this, including with reference to the corona pandemic.
Tajikistan lies on the northern border of Afghanistan. The Tajik-Afghan border is around 1,400 kilometers long, it winds through high mountains and is difficult to monitor. In Afghanistan, the Tajiks are the second largest ethnic group after the Pashtuns.
Linhart had already expressed concern on Friday in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek about the humanitarian situation in Afghanistan, which was precarious, among other things due to the drought. In addition, it is important to cooperate with the countries of the region in the fields of terrorism prevention, human trafficking and migration. The people in Afghanistan and the surrounding countries should not be forgotten either. “We won’t turn our backs on them.” There is a threat of a black security hole, “emphasized the 63-year-old diplomat with regard to Afghanistan.” These countries form a protective ring. “
Linhart, who is accompanied by a business delegation on his trip, will also visit the Nurek Dam on Saturday, which is being modernized by the Styrian mechanical engineering company and ATX heavyweight Andritz. The structure in the vicinity of Dushanbe was built between 1961 and 1980 in Soviet times and, with a height of 300 meters, is one of the highest dams in the world.