President Shavkat Mirziyoyev said border crossings with Tajikistan using ID cards needs to be speeded up during his talks with the Tajik Foreign Minister Sirojiddin Muhriddin in Samarkand Monday. Muhriddin had traveled to Uzbekistan to attend the C5+1 Ministerial Meeting.
The talks covered the ways to advance relations of friendship, good-neighborliness and alliance between the two countries. They noted growing trade and freight volumes and more active joint projects in energy, industry, agriculture and water management.
Mirziyoyev recalled that the border between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan was once closed, and that there were none of the trade ties and close relations seen today.
“There is hardly a family in Uzbekistan or Tajikistan that is not linked to the other side through ties of kinship. We must also speed up implementation of border crossing with ID cards, because freight volumes keep growing and there is a real need to resolve this issue,” the president said.
The meeting also stressed the importance of stepping up cultural, humanitarian, educational and tourism exchanges.
Muhriddin said the President Emomali Rahmon regards the all-round development of relations with Uzbekistan as one of the priorities of his country’s foreign policy.
On Nov. 20, 2024, Mirziyoyev told a Legislative Chamber session that Uzbeks were to be given the option of traveling to Kazakhstan and Tajikistan with ID cards. He noted at the time that such an arrangement was already in place between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
