Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov To Pay A Working Visit To Tajikistan On December 7

Russian defence minister Sergei Ivanov arrives in Dushanbe on a one-day working visit on Friday. A spokesman for defence ministry told RIA Novosti that the programme of Ivanov's visit would include his meeting with president of Tajikistan Emomali Rakhmonov and defence minister Sherali Khairullayev. Sergei Ivanov will also visit the Russian 201st motorized division deployed in Tajikistan. The head of the Russian defence minister reported shortly before his visit that he planed to discuss with Tajik leaders questions related to the functioning of the 201st motorized division. Sergei Ivanov told journalists in Yekaterinburg that giving this division a status of a base "is not the problem of the Russian armed forces only, it is the issue of international relations." The minister pointed out that the negotiations on this question are now being held under the mandate of the Russian foreign ministry, and "we come out for the earliest possible signing of an agreement in order that this base receive a clear-cut juridical status and we be aware of the problems of ownership and infrastructure as well as responsibility of the sides, including in the financial sphere.