Bus service between Uzbekistan, Tajikistan resumes after 26 years
TASHKENT. May 16 (Interfax) - Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have resumed bus services, which stopped in 1992, the Uzbek Motor Transport Agency said on Tuesday.
"The first bus, en route from Tashkent to Khujand and back to Tashkent, left in the morning of May 15," the report said.
The first passengers were the organizers of the bus route, and also ministry and agency officials and media assistants.
A bus of the parity partner from Tajikistan is expected to arrive in Tashkent on May 16.
The route is 174 kilometers long and the journey takes 4.5 hours. Buses will go three times a day. The ticket costs 50,000 som ($6).
According to earlier reports, flights between Tashkent and Dushanbe, which stopped in 1992, resumed in April 2017, and rail services between the southern regions of the two countries resumed in March 2018 after a 7-year break. An intergovernmental agreement on mutual visa-free trips by citizens of the two countries for a period of up to 30 days, which was signed during the visit by Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev in Dushanbe on May 9-10, took effect in late March. Twenty-seven documents on cooperation were signed following the top-level Uzbek-Tajik negotiations.