DUSHANBE, February 3, 2009, Asia-Plus  -- Tajikistan has stopped relaying RTR-Planeta.

Speaking in an interview with Asia-Plus, the director general of open joint-stock company (OJSC) Teleradiocom, Suhrob Aliyev, said that they stopped relaying RTR-Planeta on March 2 because the issue of reviewing fees of technical services rendered by Teleradiocom have not yet been solved.

We will recall that in a report released at a press conference in Dushanbe, the head of the Committee for TV and Radio-broadcasting Asadullo Rahmonov revealed on January 20 that they may stop relaying TR-Planeta due to 4.8 million Russian rubles in areas that RTR owes to open joint-stock company (OJSC) Teleradiocom for technical services.

Aliyev told Asia-Plus yesterday evening that RTR-Planeta has already paid off its debt for technical services provided in 2008.  However, RTR administration has not yet signed a contract with Teleradiocom for 2009.

“One and half months ago, we sent a letter to the RTR administration, asking to raise the technical service fees by 50 percent,” said the director general, “We noted that if the fees are not raised, we will stop relaying RTR-Planeta on March1.  Since we have not yet received reply from them and the issue has not been solved, we stopped relaying RTR-Planeta on March 2.”

According to him, if the financial issue is solved in the near future, Aliyev noted that if the financial issues, they will resume RTR-Planeta broadcasting in the country.