The Tajik government is resuming ferry operations across the Pyandzh River to Afghanistan and the first convoy with tons of humanitarian aid will cross the river to the port of Sherkhan-Bandar on Sunday, Russian border guard officials said Saturday Ferry operations at the border checkpoint at Niznhy Pyandzh port were shut down in September 2000 after Taliban military units set up camps near Afghanistan's border on Tajikistan, according to Col. Alexander Kondratyev, chief of the Russian border guards press service.
All preparations have been made for the ferries to resume their operations, Kondratyev said. He said the first convoy of 34 trucks will deliver humanitarian aid to Sherkhan-Bandar, the biggest river port in Afghanistan. From there, the aid will be delivered to the administrative center at Kunduz in northern Afghanistan for distribution.
The aid includes 150 tons of flour donated by the U.N. World Food Program and 100 tons of Russian humanitarian aid, including flour, baby food, medicine, beds, and blankets, Kondratyev said.
The decision to resume ferry operations followed a visit to Dushanbe on Friday by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, who said he believed that Russian would be able to play a key role in rendering humanitarian aid to Afghanistan.
Ivanov, who left Dushanbe to return to Moscow on Saturday, told reporters on his flight to Tajikistan, "I think Russia can not only render humanitarian aid ... but also become, in cooperation with the United Nations, a coordinator or pioneer in international aid," Russia's ORT state-controlled television reported.
Tajik President Emomali Rakhmonov met with Abdullah, the foreign minister of the newly approved interim Afghan government, on Saturday before leaving on an official visit to Saudi Arabia, the Interfax news agency said.
The two paid "particular attention to the post-conflict restoration of Afghanistan," presidential press secretary Zafar Saidov told Interfax. Bureau Report