On Monday in Moscow, CIS Executive Secretary Vladimir Rushailo and Vladimir Sotirov, a spokesman for the UN Secretary General in Tajikistan and the head of the UN Bureau for Peace Building in Tajikistan, signed a memorandum on mutual understanding and partnership between the CIS Executive Committee and the UN bureau in Tajikistan.
Mr. Rushailo emphasized that the United Nations and the CIS were cooperating in many spheres, from the fight against terrorism and drug trafficking to combating illegal migration and HIV infection.
According to him, the CIS Executive Committee and the UN Bureau are "fully aware of the urgent necessity of maintaining peace and national accord in Tajikistan, have decided to resume their joint efforts in this important process."
Mr. Sotirov noted the CIS' large contribution to the guarantees of the Tajikistani peace process's irreversibility, which the UN bureau in the republic has been actively working on.
Mr. Rushailo said both organizations cooperated while the armed stage of the inter-Tajikistani confrontation was localized. He said that it was thanks to the efforts of the UN, the CIS, the OSCE and, most of all, Russia that the agreement on establishing peace and national accord in Tajikistan was signed in Moscow on June 27, 1997.
"This agreement placed the first stone into the foundation of the settlement process and established an initially fragile and then an increasingly strong dialogue between the authorities and the united Tajikistani opposition," he said, "and the process of reconciliation in society."
According to him, the provisions of the agreement were implemented by 2000 and that this made it possible for the heads of the CIS states to make a decision on June 21, 2000 to withdraw the CIS Collective Peacekeeping Forces from Tajikistan.
Mr. Rushailo said the transition to post-conflict peace building in the republic was of no less importance for Tajikistan than the restoration of peace. He said that the CIS and the UN played a large role in the process.
