Rahmonov appeals for post-conflict support

President Emomali Rahmonov met UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan at the UN Millennium Summit in New York and discussed post-conflict economic restoration and peacemaking in Tajikistan, Tajik television reported on Wednesday. Rahmonov and Annan also addressed regional issues, including the “current dangerous situation” involving incursions by militant Islamist militias in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, tension on the Tajik-Afghan border, and other issues related to the Afghan problem, it said. Rahmonov stressed the increased spread of drugs from Afghanistan, which he said was not just a regional problem but one of international scale, the report added. Rahmonov said a dramatic part of the formation of independent Tajikistan had ended with the implementation of the general agreement on establishment of peace and national reconciliation, and a new constructive stage of the state was underway. He expressed hope that the UN effort to assist post-conflict peacemaking in Tajikistan would make a worthy contribution towards coordinating international efforts for social and economic restoration of the country. Annan in turn said Tajikistan had entered a new and quite important stage of post-conflict peacemaking, and “the programme of the reconstruction of the economy and market reforms ... demands wide international assistance.