Tajikistan is willing to resolve the situation around a convicted Russian pilot that has soured relations between the two countries, a Russian embassy official said on Friday.
Russian pilot Vladimir Sadovnichy and his Estonian colleague Alexei Rudenko were sentenced to eight and a half years in jail in Tajikistan on Tuesday for smuggling and border violations. Moscow called the sentence “politically motivated,” threatened to expel some 200 Tajik migrants and called the Russian ambassador back to the capital for consultations.
“The Tajik side expressed its readiness to resolve the situation to prevent the further aggravation of bilateral relations,” Vladimir Vaniyev, a counselor in the Russian Embassy in Tajikistan said following a meeting between Ambassador Yury Popov and Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon on Thursday night.
Popov flew to Moscow on Friday morning for consultations with the Foreign Ministry, Vaniyev said.
Following the Tajik verdict on the Russian pilot, Russia decided to retaliate and deport 100 Tajiks from the country over legal violations, Konstantin Romodanovsky, Russia’s top migration official, said on Friday.
“The Federal Migration Service is ready to send back about 100 Tajiks who committed legal offences,” he said, adding that another 134 Tajiks could be deported as well for improper documents.
A diplomatic source said this measure was “Russia’s asymmetric response” to the Tajik authorities’ decision.
Two planes with Sadovnichy and Rudenko as crew commanders were returning from Afghanistan where they had delivered humanitarian aid in March. They had permission to fly via Tajikistan but Tajik traffic controllers said they had no confirmation on land and asked them to return to Kabul. The planes did not have enough fuel and had to land in Tajikistan regardless.
Tajik authorities based their smuggling charges on the fact that the pilots had an unassembled engine onboard, which they said they were using as spare parts.
