Tajik Foreign Minister Sirojiddin Muhriddin will head the Tajik delegation at the fourth foreign ministers’ meeting of the neighboring countries of Afghanistan that will take place in the Uzbek city of Samarkand on April 13, according to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Tajikistan (MFA).  

 An official source within the MFA says the fourth ministerial meeting of Afghanistan’s neighboring countries will bring together delegations from Tajikistan, China, Iran, Pakistan, Russia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. 

Russia’s state-run news agency TASS, citing Russian Foreign Ministry, says the meeting will discuss further steps of regional partners to facilitate an Afghan political settlement and stabilize humanitarian and socio-economic situations in the country.

Given the complicated security situation and growing terrorist activity and drug production in Afghanistan, the coordination of counterterrorist and anti-drug efforts of the region’s countries is especially important, Russian Foreign Ministry was cited as saying. 

Special attention will be paid to regional economic integration and implementation of energy and transport projects with the participation of Kabul in accordance with the previously reached agreements, the Russian Foreign Ministry summed up. 

Meanwhile Afghanistan’s news agency TOLOnews reports that the participants of the meeting will discuss the fight against narcotics production and activities of terrorist groups in Afghanistan.