DUSHANBE, November 22, Asia-Plus  -- The Heads of Mission of each of the five European Union missions in Dushanbe (France, Germany, United Kingdom, Sweden and the European Commission) are all paying a three-day visit to the remote South-West of Tajikistan this week. They will be spending a whole day in each of the districts of Nosiri Khusrav, Shahritus and Qubodiyon, learning about the life of these places, meeting local leaders and civil society, and visiting some schools and projects. The visit comes in the wake of the EU''s Strategy for Central Asia, agreed in June, which focuses more European attention on Tajikistan and its neighbors. It follows an event in late October when Foreign Minister Zarifi invited representatives of all European Union Embassies accredited to Tajikistan to come to Dushanbe for a day, and it also precedes an important visit on Monday 26 November of a high-level delegation from the EU for talks with the Tajik government.

"This is an excellent opportunity for us as Ambassadors to really get to know the districts of Nosiri Khusrav, Shahritus and Qubodiyon" says Mr. Graeme Loten, the British Ambassador and currently acting as the local Presidency for the European Union in Tajikistan. "We have several projects in these areas which are funded by the European Union or by our individual countries which we shall be interested to see on the ground, but we also want to learn more about the actual situation of these districts - for example the role played by cotton, the problems of the resettled people, and the difficulties of finding sufficient water in such a dry area."

The European Heads of Mission will be visiting some remote rural areas of each district as well as the district centers, including Firouza jamoat of Nosiri Khusrav and Aiwaj in Nazarov jamoat on the Afghan border. As well as this, they will also be visiting schools in each of the districts in order to talk to the area''s young people about their studies, especially of European languages. A highlight of the visit will be an exhibition by the NGOs of Shahritus of the various work that they do. The chairman of each district will be hosting a lunch for the Ambassadors on each day, and the visitors will return the hospitality by offering a European dinner on the Friday evening in the centre of Shahritus.