DUSHANBE. June 10 (Interfax-AVN) - The transfer of the Tajik-Afghan border from Russian border guards to their Tajik counterparts is expected to be over before mid-June, Colonel Alexander Kondratyev, press service chief of the Russian Regional Border Guard Directorate in Tajikistan, told Interfax Friday.
"The second stage of the procedures to hand over the 135-km long Pyandzh section of the border started on Thursday and is to be complete by June 20 under the plan, but I think that it will be over even earlier," he said.
According to him, a joint commission will conduct the transfer of 10 outposts and three posts with all infrastructure in the coming several days. The Khalkayar training center for specialists of the Pyandzh and Moscow border guard units will be handed over, too, he said.
The training center was reputed one of the best Russian border guard training installations, Kondratyev said.
Russian border guards have handed over 112 km of the Tajik-Afghan border to their Tajik counterparts since May 23, including six outposts of the Pyandzh unit and five other posts with all infrastructures.
Apart from that, the Nizhny Pyandzh checkpost was handed over to Tajiks.
After the Pyandzh part of the border is handed over to Tajikistan in full, the protection of the entire border with Afghanistan, which is over 1,344 km long, will be the responsibility of the country's Border Guard Committee.
As soon as all materiel, weapons and ammo are handed over, the Russian flag will be dragged down and the flag of Tajikistan will be hoisted, with local authorities attending the ceremony.