DUSHANBE, March 14, Asia-Plus -- Afghanistan has offered Tajikistan to increase the number of flights linking their capital cities.  

This issue was discussed in Dushanbe at the 12th two-day meeting of the Project Working Group of the Transport and Border Crossing Facilitation that concluded today. 

The meeting considered issues related to facilitating cross-border transport of goods and people between the two countries.  

On the issue of increasing the number of flights, the Tajik side noted that it will make a decision on this issue after considering appropriate documents on passenger carrying on this air route.  

According to Tajikistan’s State Air Company TajikAir, at present there is once-week air service from Dushanbe to Kabul.  The scheduled flight is every Friday.  “Afghan national air carrier Ariana Afghan Airlines operates passenger services between Kabul and Dushanbe,” the source at TajikAir said.   

Afghanistan’s Deputy Transport Minister, Raz Muhammad Allami, raised the issue of functioning of barges working on the border River of Panj on the commercial basis.  Afghan representatives were concerned over further functioning of barges after the construction of a series of bridges across the Panj River that will consolidate permanent overland links between Tajikistan and Afghanistan.  

Specialists from Tajikistan’s Ministry of Transport and Communications (MoTC) noted that functioning of the barges will not be suspended because there are many crossing points along the river.   

Five Tajik-Afghan bridges across the Panj River are scheduled to be built to improve commerce and trade within Central Asia.   Three bridges in the GBAO districts of Ishkashim, Shugnan and Darvoz have already been put into operation.  The construction of two other bridges is still ongoing, Tajik Deputy Transport and Communications Minister, Khudoyor Khudoyorov, noted.  

            The meeting also discussed issues related to development of transport corridors and infrastructure.  The sides also conducted consultations on the cross-border issues.   

SPECA Project Working Groups were established in a number of key areas where it was thought that countries would benefit from greater regional cooperation.  Under this framework, a Project Working Group on Transport and Border Crossing was established with Kazakhstan as the lead SPECA country.