Dushanbe: Ambassador of the State of Qatar to the Republic of Tajikistan H E Mubarak bin Abdurrahman Al Nasr stressed that the visit of Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani to Dushanbe carries an economic and commercial dimension, and reflects the interest that Qatar attaches to developing cooperation relations with Tajikistan.
In an interview with Qatar News Agency (QNA), the Ambassador said that the visit of the Amir emphasises the strength of the bilateral relations between the two countries and people, as they went through two basic stages. The first was the stage of forming relations and their beginning in the 90s. This stage, which began on December 13, 1994, was characterised by major movements in relations due to the civil war in Tajikistan and the stage of reconstruction after it.
The second stage was that of development and improvement since 2007 when the leaders of the two countries exchanged official visits and the President of Tajikistan visited Qatar in May 2007, followed by Father Amir H H Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani’s visit to Tajikistan in August of the same year. His visit was considered historic, as he was the first leader of an Arab country to visit Tajikistan.
The Ambassador said that the development of the relations between the two countries led to the opening of the Qatari embassy in Tajikistan in 2012, and the Tajik embassy in Qatar in 2013. He added that the Tajik President visited Qatar in 2017, while Amir H H Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani visited Tajikistan in 2019, noting that the two visits led to the signing of 16 agreements in several political, economic, social fields.
He explained that the bilateral relations between the two countries include parliamentary relations, security cooperation and combating terrorism, as the State of Qatar supported international conferences on combating terrorism in Dushanbe in 2018 and 2019.
He said that the economic and commercial cooperation between Qatar and Tajikistan resulted in the Grand Mosque project, with Qatari support amounting to about $100m and the Diar Dushanbe project, at a cost of $300m.
The Ambassador alos highlighted about the signing of a number of agreements between Qatar and Tajikistan, including an agreement in the field of agriculture and food security, an agreement in the field of standards, certification and commercial control, and a M U in the field of protecting endangered wildlife.
He pointed out that there are promising investment opportunities in several areas in Tajikistan. The most important of which is the energy sector; Being rich in water resources, agriculture and mining, Qatari investors can take advantage of that.
The Ambassador stressed, at the end of his interview with QNA, that the visit of H H the Amir will advance bilateral relations and open new areas of cooperation between the two countries, noting that the relations between the two countries were and will remain distinguished in their Asian environs, as they connects two important regions in the Islamic world, namely the Middle East region, the Arabian Gulf region, and the Central Asian region.
Source: The Peninsula Qatar