The president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan are visiting Tajikistan, both of them are going to attend the conference of Persian-speaking countries, which is held in Dushanbe. Of course the hero of the day is Ahmadinejad. His visit draws the attention of the whole world.

Five memoranda of understanding and agreements in various fields were signed between Iran and Tajikistan. The inked documents pave the way for cooperation between the two sides in various sectors, including labor and social affairs, tourism, justice, establishment of free economic and trade zones as well as preferred tariffs on exchange of goods. Besides, Ahmadinejad and his entourage will participate in the inaugural ceremony of Anzab Tunnel and confer with Tajik educational elites as well as the Iranians residing in the country.

It seems like the religious Iran has changed its foreign policy towards secular Tajikistan, and especially towards the government. During the Civil war in Tajikistan Iran was supporting the Islamic Renaissance Party which was the main body of Tajik opposition, and it was eager to overthrow the existing secular government, but now the situation is changed and Iran is now becoming the friend of Tajikistan. It is clear that Iran is now in a bad situation because of the possible sanctions of Security Council and it needs to make good relations with its neighbors. Iran would not be that close with Tajikistan if it had a better situation.

One may think that the visit of Ahmadinejad concerns only Tajikistan and Iran but I think it is more than that. Tajikistan is a good instrument for Russia to tease US. Russia can not stand very close to Iran because it can be criticized by the international community, and it can damage Russia’s good reputation, but it also does not want to lose the opportunity to tease United States. It is one of the peculiarities of Russian foreign policy, to choose friends among those who are against western countries, especially US.

The conference of Persian-speaking countries is a good reason to make the three presidents to come together. During the visit of Rahmonov to Tehran in January, 2006 Karzai supposedly had to come to join him, but due to some reasons he did not join him. That is because Karzai did want the international donors to make doubts about him. This time Karzai is in better situation because Tajikistan looks more neutral territory, and he simply could not refuse second time to join Ahmadinejad and Rahmonov because then it would be obvious something is wrong.

Tajikistan is earning a lot of credits from the good relations with Iran. First of all it is investment which is flowing into the country through various projects in hydropower industry, transportation, information and communication technology, education, medicine and trade. It is good that the Iranian and Tajik relations in the last years have been improved and it is getting better everyday. These countries have a common historical and cultural heritage, which makes them closer to each other than to any other country in the world.