DUSHANBE, June 28, 2013, Asia-Plus -- President Emomali Rahmon attended events to celebrate the National Unity of Tajikistan that took place at the Navrouzgoh Complex in Dushanbe on June 27, according to the Tajik president’s official website.

Rahmon congratulated those present on the occasion of the National Unity Day and noted that nobody in the country had the moral right to forget the horrors and lessons of the civil war, its victims.

“Tough lessons the Tajik people learned from that war make us be vigilant and care for national accord and peace on our soil,” Rahmon stressed.

This year is the 16th anniversary of the National Unity Day of Tajikistan.  Sixteen years ago, on June 27, 1997, the confronting sides signed in Moscow the General Agreement on the Establishment of Peace and National Accord in Tajikistan.  For the purposes of achieving peace and national accord in Tajikistan and overcoming the consequences of the civil war, inter-Tajik talks on national reconciliation were conducted from April 1994 to 1997 under the auspices of the United Nations.

Protocols that were agreed and signed in the course of eight rounds of talks between delegations of the Government of Tajikistan and the United Tajik Opposition (UTO), six meetings between the President of Tajikistan and the UTO leader, and also three rounds of consultations between the delegations of the sides in Almaty, Ashgabat, Bishkek, Islamabad, Kabul, Mashhad (Iran), Moscow, Tehran and Khusdeh (Afghanistan) constituted the General Agreement on the Establishment of Peace and National Accord in Tajikistan.