Putin Throws Crumbs at Tajikistan

Something must be going right in the rickety relationship between Dushanbe and Moscow. 

In late March, Moscow increased fuel export duties on petroleum products destined for Tajikistan, the poorest country to emerge from the former Soviet Union. This blog speculated on possible causes: Could it have been pressure to allow Russian troops to reassume control over the Tajiks’ wide-open border with Afghanistan, which Moscow says is a conduit for millions of dollars of heroin blighting Russian youth? Or something thornier, such as whether Moscow should pay to station its troops on Tajik soil? 

Certainly, Russian primo Vladimir Putin isn’t the kind of leader who responds to irritations with charity. In May, prices for gasoline in Tajikistan jumped 44 percent thanks to his tariffs. But in a sudden about-face, the all-powerful Putin has signed a decree actually lowering – slightly, immediately, even retroactively – those fuel duties. Light crude prices will decrease by a modest 3.7 percent as of July 1, CA-News reported on July 5.

Putin is no doubt concerned by what the US Embassy, in a WikiLeaked cable, described last year as a “poorly trained, poorly paid, underequipped and often under-fed” Tajik border force that allows 40 tons of opiates to enter Russia each year. 

But what has he received in return?

It appears something has finally come out of months of meetings over the fate of that vexing frontier, and the few remaining Russian military trainers there. In Dushanbe last week, a high-level Russian delegation including Sergey Naryshkin, the head of the presidential administration, and Defense Minister Anatoly Serdukov announced they had made a deal. 

Though the Tajiks say there is no way they will allow the Russians to retake control of the frontier, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is set to sign the heretofore-undisclosed agreement with his counterpart, Emomali Rakhmon, when he travels to Dushanbe to attend the annual CIS Summit in September. That party happens to coincide with Tajikistan’s celebrations of 20 years of independence from Moscow.  

The city’s makeup artists are frantically slapping on a smiley face, repaving roads and repainting buildings for the event. Will we learn then what deal the two countries have struck? Or will we be left guessing long after the paint dries?