Strained relations between Iran and Tajikistan should set off alarm bells in the Central Asian country as it will give Saudi Arabia ample room for maneuver and create conditions for the rise of extremism, according to an Iranian news agency.
"Cold relations between the two countries, which share a common cultural heritage, will create favorable conditions for Saudi Arabia and Takfiri groups that will definitely pose a great security challenge to Tajikistan," Mehr News Agency wrote in a commentary published recently, following Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif’s visit to the Tajik capital Dushanbe last month.
Takfiris are hardliners who accuse any Muslim not following their extreme interpretation of Islam as apostates punishable by death.
Prelude to Radicalism
The article says the pledge by Riyadh in 2017 to provide $35 million toward the building of schools in Tajikistan is aimed at propagating an extremist mindset among the youth in the Persian-speaking predominant Muslim state. The Tajik government should fight the rearguard action against such efforts if it wants to prevent the country from turning into a breeding ground for advocates of a radical interpretation of Islam, it suggested.
Thaw in Ties
The commentary adds that Zarif's meetings with Tajik officials, including President Emomali Rahmon, could open a new chapter in bilateral ties if accompanied by concrete steps. "Improvement in two-way relations, which was on the agenda of the foreign minister's recent trip, demands fundamental and considerable measures so that the two countries that share a common language could get closer to each other."
Zarif attended a ministerial meeting of the Economic Cooperation Organization—which includes the Iran and Tajikistan—in Dushanbe on April 17.
Iran was the first country to recognize Tajikistan's independence in the early 1990s and acted as one of the mediators in talks to end its 1992-97 civil war.
But ties between the two nations suffered after a leader of a banned Tajik Islamist party attended a conference in Tehran in 2015, which infuriated the government in Dushanbe.
Sore Points
Mehr's commentary argues that apart from Saudi attempts to sabotage relations between the two countries and cash in on their estrangement, a host of other factors led to the current situation.
The fact that Tajikistan last year accused Iran of sending assassins and saboteurs into the former Soviet republic, when it was embroiled in a civil war, made a bad situation worse, read the article. Tehran denied the allegations. It added that the closing down of several Iranian centers in the country by Tajik authorities and their decision to slap travel and trade restrictions on citizens and goods from Iran in recent years contributed to the souring relations.
Another irritant has been the fate of the assets of jailed Iranian billionaire Babak Zanjani, whose international business empire once included assets in Tajikistan, the article said. According to Asia-Plus, a Tajikistan-based news agency, Babak Zanjani’s Tajik empire includes a bank, an airline, a taxi service and a bus terminal.
