Tajikistan.

The Security Council on 14 March extended the United Nations Mission of Observers in Tajikistan (UNMOT) until 15 June 1997, subject to the proviso that the 1994 Tehran Agreement remained in force and the parties - the Government of Tajikistan and the United Tajik Opposition (UTO) - demonstrated their commitment to the new agreements already reached. By unanimously adopting resolution 1099 (1997), the Council also strongly condemned the "acts of mistreatment against UNMOT and other international personnel". It urgently called upon the Tajik parties to "cooperate in bringing the perpetrators to justice", ensure the safety and freedom of movement of the United Nations personnel, the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) peacekeeping forces and other international personnel, and to cooperate fully with UNMOT.

In welcoming the agreements signed by the parties since December 1996, particularly the Protocol on Military Issues, the Council expressed satisfaction that the ceasefire had been "generally observed", and called on the parties to "maintain it scrupulously". The Protocol, signed during the Moscow round of the inter-Tajik talks (26 February-8 March), contained agreements on the reintegration, disarmament and disbandment of the UTO armed units, reform of the power structures of the Tajik Government, and confidence-building measures.

Also in resolution 1099, the Council welcomed the Secretary-General's intention to inform it of any significant developments with regard to the situation in Tajikistan, in particular of a "decision to resume all United Nations activities presently suspended, including those of UNMOT".

Member States and others concerned were called upon to "respond promptly and generously to the consolidated inter-agency donor alert on urgent humanitarian needs" for the period from 1 December 1996 to 31 May 1997, and "offer support to Tajikistan for rehabilitation, aimed at mitigation of the consequences of the war and reconstruction of its economy".

Further talks

The negotiating process between the Tajik parties would come to an end in June, "so that by the end of that month, a comprehensive national peace accord could be signed", Gerd Merrem, the Secretary-General's Special Representative for Tajikistan, told the press at Headquarters on 19 March.

Apart from the Protocol on Military Issues which, according to Mr. Merrem, was "perhaps the most complex protocol", the parties had agreed on the following measures: amnesty and mutual forgiveness; creation of a Commission on National Reconciliation; and a time-bound schedule for talks on the remaining political and other substantive issues. They had also signed a Protocol on the return of refugees and internally displaced persons, "reinstating them to previous social rights and conditions".

Ahead, Mr. Merrem continued, was another protocol or agreement on political guarantees: how would primarily the various observer countries that had accompanied the process provide political guarantees that what had been agreed was eventually implemented. Outstanding was the issue of the "timing and modality under which political parties will again be allowed to be active", since a number of parties were currently banned, he added.

Once the next round was completed, there would be the challenge not only to help both sides to agree, but perhaps to support them in "doing and carrying out what they had agreed", the Special Representative stated.

Abductions

On 3 February, five UNMOT personnel en route from Garm to Dushanbe for the medical evacuation of a military observer had been taken hostage by the armed group responsible for abducting 23 persons on 20 December, the Secretary-General said in a 5 March report. On 5 February, the same group took an additional seven persons hostage: a representative of the International Committee of the Red Cross, her interpreter and five journalists. On 7 February, the Tajik Minister for Security, Saidamir Zukhurov, had also been "taken hostage while trying to negotiate the release of others", the report said.

By 17 February, following a series of negotiations and the personal intervention of President Emomali Rakhmonov of Tajikistan, all hostages were released.

However, in light of those developments, the Secretary-General on 8 February authorized the suspension of all United Nations activities in Tajikistan, as well as the relocation to the neighbouring Uzbekistan, in two stages, of all UN personnel, except for a small UNMOT team in Dushanbe and a civilian liaison office in Khujand.

Attacks condemned

The Security Council on 7 February strongly condemned the "attacks on and kidnapping of international personnel" in Tajikistan and demanded the "immediate release of all those taken hostage".

Through a statement by its President, Njiguna M. Mahagu of Kenya, the Council also expressed "satisfaction at the efforts by and cooperation among UNMOT, the Russian Federation and the parties to resolve the hostage crisis", and stressed the "inadmissibility of kidnapping and any other mistreatment" of United Nations personnel.

By welcoming the 23 December 1996 Moscow agreement, including the Protocol on the Commission on National Reconciliation, and noting the progress at the inter-Tajik talks (6-19 January, Tehran), the Council stated that those agreements, provided they were carried out as written, represented a "qualitative change for the better" and gave a "new impetus to efforts aimed at achieving national reconciliation".

In expressing "deep concern over the deteriorating humanitarian situation" in the country, the Council called for "continuing emergency relief, including assistance for the return of refugees".

Secretary-General Kofi Annan on 21 January had reported that the situation in Tajikistan remained "extremely fluid". It was "never easy to overcome the enmity and mistrust created in years of armed conflict and there are elements on both sides who believe that their interests are better served by continued fighting", he said, adding that he viewed the recent harassment of United Nations personnel in that light.