Russia will rent military base in Tajikistan on former terms - Serdyukov
MOSCOW. July 6 (Interfax-AVN) - Russia will rent the territory accommodating the 201st military base in Tajikistan on the old terms, Russian Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov told the press on Friday.
"I hope our Tajik colleagues will be prepared and sign all documents in October. The financial terms will remain the same, I think," Serdyukov said after the 62nd meeting of the Defense Ministers Council of the Commonwealth of Independent States.
Russia has offered "sufficiently decent terms to Tajikistan," he said.
"The presence of a Russian military base in Tajikistan gives Dushanbe rather good dividends in the form of investment, taxes and jobs," he said.
Russia does not consider military-technical aid extended to Tajikistan as a barter plan, he said "Milityary-tecnnical cooperation is military-technical cooperation. Everything that is connected with our military base and its operation is another thing," the Russia defense minister said.
He said that during talks between the Russian and Tajik presidents, the Russian defense minister and the Tajik negotiator were instructed to draft a rent agreement.
"We sent our draft to Dushanbe in November 2011, where it is expected to be studied. We hope to receive a positive reaction," he said.
Tajik Defense Minister Sherali Khairulloyev said in Kaliningrad on Thursday at a meeting of the Defense Ministers Council of the Commonwealth of Independent States that, Tajikistan "is drafting its own protocol and will then handed it to Russia." "No one has received the Tajik draft yet and no one has read the Russian draft, either," he said.
Russian General Staff chief General of the Army Nikolai Makarov said earlier that the Russian Defense Ministry will not provide funds to further develop the 201st military base in Tajikistan pending the slow-moving talks on its location beyond 2014.
The 201st military base has 6,000 personnel and its units are located near Dushanbe, Kulyab and Kurgan-Tyube. It is a major army base beyond Russia.