DUSHANBE, August 27, 2008, Asia-Plus  -- Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, heading a high-ranking delegation, arrived in Dushanbe today afternoon.    

Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki, Energy Minister Parviz Fattah, and Senior Presidential Adviser Mojtaba Samareh-Hashemi are accompanying Ahmadinejad on his visit to Tajikistan.  

Today, Ahmadinejad will hold talks with President to discuss ways of expanding bilateral cooperation between the two countries.

During his stay in Dushanbe, the Iranian president will attend a summit of head of states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), in which Iran has a status of observer, and take part at a trilateral meeting with presidents of Afghanistan (Hamid Karzai) and Tajikistan (Emomali Rahmon) to sign a 17-point document for expansion of trilateral relations.  

President Ahmadinejad will also meet separately with his Chinese (Hu Jintao), Russian (Dmitry Medvedev) and Kazakh (Nursultan Nazarbayev) counterparts, Iranian diplomat said. 

We will recall that Iranian Ambassador to Tajikistan, Mr. Ali-Asghar Sherdoust, told reporters in Dushanbe on August 25 that it is also considered the issue of participation of Ahmadinejad in the groundbreaking ceremony for construction of a new building of the Iranian embassy at the Ismoili Somoni Street in Dushanbe.

In the meantime, according to Iran’s news agency IRNA, prior to his departure for Dushanbe, President Ahmadinejad told Iranian reported that Iran''s presence at the upcoming Summit of Shanghai Cooperation Organization will be determining.  He added that the consultations among the leaders of the participating countries on the sidelines of the summit will be crucial.  Ahmadinejad said that the latest regional and international developments will be reviewed during his meetings with counterparts participating in the summit.  He expressed hope that the summit will be fruitful and the consultations would benefit the member states, the region and the international community.