MOSCOW. July 30 (Interfax-AVN) - The Russian army base in Tajikistan is likely to move to another Central Asian country if turns out that Tajikistan wants to demand that Russia pay it for the use of the base as is alleged in Thursday's issue of the Kommersant newspaper, said Andrei Grozin, a senior Russian analyst.
"I believe that Russia has two options to react to the situation if Dushanbe officially states its demands. The first option is to satisfy the minimum financial needs of Tajikistan in order to help it climb out of its economic problems. The second option, which is probably more realistic to expect, is a 'soft split' with Tajikistan and possibly the transfer of the military base to another Central Asian country, for example Kyrgyzstan," said Grozin, head of the Central Asia and Kazakhstan department at the Moscow-based Institute of the Commonwealth of Independent States,.
"It is indicative that no statements have been made about this in Tajikistan at the official level. Dushanbe is floating a trial balloon ahead of the visit of the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev. The essence of the Tajik position is to create a favorable atmosphere for bargaining in order to get preferential terms from Russia. And the plan in Dushanbe is to take the dominant position at the negotiations with Moscow," Grozin told Interfax on Thursday.
If Russia does give Tajikistan such "preferential terms," Dushanbe will immediately deny the allegations about the base, he said.
Russian daily Kommersant said Tajikistan "wants Russia to start paying for its use of the 201st Base" and wants the Russian border guards remaining in Tajikistan to leave the Central Asian country.