(ITAR-TASS) – Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov will go to Dushanbe on Monday to discuss with the Tajik leadership cooperation in the Commonwealth of the Independent States and the Collective Security Treaty Organization and the situation in Afghanistan.

Sergei Lavrov

Lavrov’s visit is timed to the 20th anniversary of bilateral relations.

The Russian foreign minister will meet with his Tajik counterpart Khamrokhon Zarifi and the President of Tajikistan Emomali Rakhmon. The negotiators will discuss political, economic and humanitarian cooperation and the guidelines in the cooperation in the CIS, CSTO, the Eurasian Economic Community and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Russia believes that Lavrov’s negotiations “will make a tangible contribution in the build-up of the relations of friendship and strategic partnership between Russia and Tajikistan,” a source in the Russian Foreign Ministry noted.

Recently; Tajik President Russia had declared that Russia is the main strategic partner and the natural ally of his country. He aid to have been approached by several countries seeking permission to set up bases in Tajikistan but he rejected all these requests by foreign powers because he does not want to upset Russia.