roposed for FY95/96 budget

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TAJIKISTAN

Note--Tajikistan has experienced three changes of government since it
gained independence in September 1991. The current president, Emomali
RAKHMONOV, was elected to the presidency in November 1994, yet has
been in power since 1992. The country is suffering through its third
year of a civil war, with no clear end in sight. Underlying the
conflict are deeply-rooted regional and clan-based animosities that
pit a government consisting of people primarily from the Kulob
(Kulyab), Khujand (Leninabad), and Hisor (Hissar) regions against a
secular and Islamic-led opposition from the Gharm, Gorno-Badakhshan,
and Qurghonteppa (Kurgan-Tyube) regions. Government and opposition
representatives have held periodic rounds of UN-mediated peace talks
and agreed in September 1994 to a cease-fire. Russian-led peacekeeping
troops are deployed throughout the country, and Russian border guards
are stationed along the Tajik-Afghan border.

@Tajikistan:Geography

Location: Central Asia, west of China

Map references: Commonwealth of Independent States - Central Asian
States

Area:
total area: 143,100 sq km
land area: 142,700 sq km
comparative area: slightly smaller than Wisconsin

Land boundaries: total 3,651 km, Afghanistan 1,206 km, China 414 km,
Kyrgyzstan 870 km, Uzbekistan 1,161 km

Coastline: 0 km (landlocked)

Maritime claims: none; landlocked

International disputes: boundary with China in dispute; territorial
dispute with Kyrgyzstan on northern boundary in Isfara Valley area;
Afghanistan's and other foreign support to Tajik rebels based in
northern Afghanistan

Climate: midlatitude continental, hot summers, mild winters; semiarid
to polar in Pamir Mountains

Terrain: Pamir and Altay Mountains dominate landscape; western Fergana
Valley in north, Kofarnihon and Vakhsh Valleys in southwest

Natural resources: significant hydropower potential, some petroleum,
uranium, mercury, brown coal, lead, zinc, antimony, tungsten

Land use:
arable land: 6%
permanent crops: 0%
meadows and pastures: 23%
forest and woodland: 0%
other: 71%

Irrigated land: 6,940 sq km (1990)

Environment:
current issues: inadequate sanitation facilities; increasing levels of
soil salinity; industrial pollution; excessive pesticides; part of the
basin of the shrinking Aral Sea which