DUSHANBE, Sept 9 (AFP) - Iranian President Mohammad Khatami is to visit Tajikistan on Saturday for talks over a 400-million-dollar project to complete a hydro-electric power station that has already taken 15 years to build.
"During his three-day visit, Khatami intends to hold talks over the completion of the hydro-electric power station, which had been started in the Soviet era," said Iran's ambassador to Tajikistan, Nasser Sarmadi Parsa.
The project to build the Sangtuda plant started in 1989, but was suspended when the Soviet Union's fall and the ensuing civil war left Tajikistan's economy shattered, its budget drained and set Russian-born experts fleeing back home.
Khatami is due to visit Sangtuda as well as the Anzob tunnel north of Dushanbe, built with help from Iranian experts. If completed, the plant would go a long way towards solving Tajikistan's energy shortages.
Another major project to be discussed is a highway linking Tajikistan and Iran via northern Afghanistan.
"This road is already being built in Afghanistan from the Iranian side. In southern Tajikistan they are building a bridge to Afghanistan," the ambassador said.
In total, Iran intends to invest some 700 million dollars in Tajikistan's struggling economy over the next five years, he added.
Iran's mounting interest is a pleasant change for the Tajik authorities, which had long complained that cultural ties with Iran developed far better than economic ones.
Iran as well as Russia acted as guarantor for the peace treaty signed by the Tajik government and the country's Islamic opposition, which agreed to lay down arms thus ending the five-year war which cost 150,000 lives.