DUSHANBE. Aug 1 (Interfax) - The Afghan citizens who came under fire at the Tajik border, were tourists, not drug couriers, Afghanistan's Foreign Minister Zalmai Rassoul told the media on Friday.
Tajik border guards spotted 12 armed Afghan smugglers on the Shuroabad stretch of the Tajik-Afghan border early on July 23, reports said earlier, citing the Main Border Department of the Tajik State National Security Service. Eight of them were killed and four returned to Afghanistan.
"Those people [Afghan citizens] were tourists. We are asking our friend and neighbor Tajikistan to probe the situation," he said in Tajikistan, where he had arrived on a visit.
He declined to speak about what the "tourists" were doing in the Shuroabad district, where there are no border crossings, or sights worth seeing. Saying that his schedule was very busy, he left the scene.
The Tajik Foreign Ministry is probing the incident, too, and it will provide a report on what actually happened. "We know the Afghan side's opinion on the incident. Our law enforcement agencies have a different version of the events, since after the exchange of fire, 50 kilograms of illicit drugs and arms were seized," Tajik Foreign Ministry spokesman Davlatali Nazriyev said.
"In any case, this incident is under the Foreign Ministry's control and we will of course announce the results of the probe," he said.
Tajikistan's tourism council, which provides visa support to foreign tourists, told Interfax that Afghan citizens have never applied for visas over the past five years.
Tajikistan remains one of the central transit points in delivering Afghan opiates to Russia and Western Europe. According to the UN, about 20% of Afghan drugs are shipped via the Northern Route - Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan, but the bulk of the drugs go through Iran and Pakistan. The Tajik-Afghan border is 1,244 kilometers long.