Tajik FM departs for Istanbul to attend regional summit on Afghanistan

                 Author: Avaz Yuldoshev

DUSHANBE, January 25, 2010, Asia-Plus  -- Tajik Foreign Minister Hamrokhon Zarifi has departed for Istanbul, Turkey to attend the Regional Summit of Afghanistan’s Neighbors that will take place there tomorrow, according to the Tajik MFA information department.
Tomorrow’s conference in Istanbul is scheduled to bring together neighbors of the war-ton country and observers from international organizations.
Along with heads of Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan, Iranian vice-president, Turkmen vice-premier, foreign ministers from Great Britain, China, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, as well as minister of state of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and secretaries general of the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC) Conference on Interaction and Confidence-Building Measures in Asia (CICA) and the Economic Cooperation Organization (ECO) will also take part at the conference that will pave the way for an international conference eon Afghanistan that will take place in London on January 28, the source said.
Hamrokhon Zarifi will take part at the London conference as well.

In the meantime, Turkey’s Today’s Zaman reported today that Istanbul is hosting a presidential-level trilateral summit with Afghanistan and Pakistan today.  The summit, which is bringing together President Abdullah Gul with his Afghan counterpart, Hamid Karzai, and Pakistani counterpart, Asif Ali Zardari, is the fourth of such summits organized by Turkey.  The last such trilateral summit was hosted by Turkey in early April, 2009.  In the spring of 2007 Turkey arranged a meeting between Karzai and his then-Pakistani counterpart, Pervez Musharraf, after Kabul accused Islamabad of not doing enough to stop militants from entering Afghanistan by way of Pakistan.  In early December 2008, Ankara managed to secure another trilateral meeting between Turkey, Afghanistan and Pakistan, this time in Istanbul, for talks aimed at boosting cooperation between the two neighbors.