DUSHANBE, March 4, 2011, Asia-Plus –  Russia has no plans to re-deploy border guards to the Tajik-Afghan border, Russian Ambassador to Tajikistan Yuri Popov said in an interview with the Dushanbe weekly Biznes i Pollitika (Business and Politics) weekly on Thursday, commenting on reports in local and foreign media outlets on the on-going Russian-Tajik border cooperation talks in Dushanbe.

"A broader basing of Russian border guards on the Tajik-Afghan border is not on the agenda, and neither Moscow nor Dushanbe will be raising the issue," the Russian diplomat underlined.

"Russia and Tajikistan are coordinating a draft agreement on border issue cooperation at the expert level, with the view of optimizing the parameters, forms and guidelines for interaction in this important sphere," he noted.

The term of the inter-government agreement, signed in 2005 and ratified by the parliaments of the two countries, expires in April 2011.

The document regulated the conditions of the functioning in Tajikistan of an operational border group of Russia''s Federal Security Service, represented by a small group of advisers after Russia''s withdrawal of its border troops from Tajikistan in the summer of 2005.

At present, Russia and Tajikistan continue military and border cooperation.  Viktor Dubovitsky, researcher from the Institute of History of the Academy of Sciences of Tajikistan, said in an interview to Itar Tass that 230 Tajik students study at Russian military schools and 25 Tajik officers are trainees at the Border Guard Troops Academy in Moscow.

Last year alone, Russia pilots transported 2,376 passengers who were Tajik servicemen, and delivered over 75 tons of cargos to border outposts in Pamir highlands.