DUSHANBE, February 11, 2011, Asia-Plus -- The Communist Party (CPT) leader also member of the Majlisi Namoyandagon (Tajikistan’s lower chamber of parliament) Shodi Shabdolov is certain that increasing religious radicalism in many Islamic nations pose threat not only those nations but to the region as whole.

“As far as Tajikistan is concerned, such forces do not yet pose a serous threat here, but this may happen at any point in consideration of the geopolitical location of the country,” Shabdolov noted.

According to him, the realty is that the government has nothing to oppose increasing religious extremism in society.  “Today we do not have well-educated and skilled personnel that could debate with such forces on the ideological front,” said Shabdolov, “To be more precise, we have such personnel but they are not called for by the authorities.”

On the national ideology, the CPT leader noted that “all political parties functioning in their word have their own ideology but no one of them can be up to the standard meeting demands of the national ideology.”  “Tajik authorities today, with help from the whole society, have to develop an ideology that would meet requirements of the time and society,” the CPT leader said, reminding that a working group had been set up in the mid-1990s for development of principles of the national ideology.

“Persons initiating the establishment of this group and the government that supported them, however, stopped work in this direction after signing of a common peace and national accord agreement, thinking that civil confrontation will not recur in Tajikistan any more,” Shabdolov said.