Dushanbe will see its name in the news more in the next month, with preparations for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) Summit at the end of August. The SCO Council of Ministers met in Dushanbe last week primarily to prepare for the more critical Heads of State meeting schedule to take place in the city on August 28. Besides declaring Dushanbe a ready host, the meeting served to emphasize the timing of the August SCO Summit relative to the Beijing Olympics. A meeting of SCO Culture Ministers, including Tajik minister Mirzoshohruh Asrori, also took place in Kyrgyzstan and Bakeiv emphasized the Kyrgyz-Chinese relationship to the Chinese media.

Not to be outdone, the Tajik-Chinese relationship was also mutually reinforced. Tajik Foreign Minister Khamrokhon Zarifi and Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi vowed to continue “their joint fight against the ‘three evil forces’ of terrorism, separatism and extremism.” The SCO summit will be just days after the closing ceremony for the Beijing Olympics, making it critical foreign policy follow-up to all the cultural fanfare of the sports arena. China is understandably anxious for Dushanbe to be prepared.

Along those lines, it seems the same visa restrictions imposed to avoid problems in Bishkek last year are in place for the Dushanbe summit (at least for certain “suspect” countries). Tom T writes about visas for Afghan kids on a summer program:

“Waiting around for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) to say “DA” or “NYET” about giving a group of Afghan high school students visas so they can come to a great 3 week ESL camp is a bit aggravating…MFA is waffling, making us play the waiting game…The longer we wait (already 2 weeks), the more obvious the NO will be. The main reason for saying NO is “SHOS”—the Shanghai Cooperation Summit which gave us so much grief last year in Kyrgyzstan. ..Even though our camp will be finished by the time the summit begins, they still aren’t giving out visas (as if it’s that difficult).”