INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Tajikistan, evoking Moscow's responsibilities in the area."We are doing everything to normalize the situation [in Afghanistan] and we are
trying to build relations with the political forces that control the situation," Putin said during talks with Tajikistan's President
Emomali Rakhmon.But their starting point was that Afghanistan's ethnic groups should take a full part in running the country, he added, in
comments broadcast by Russian media."Here, you know best [...] what needs to be done to ensure that the situation in the region, in this
zone where we have a common responsibility, is stable and threatens no one," he told Rakhmon.This is Putin's first trip abroad since the
region.Tajikistan has a 1,200-kilometer-long border with Afghanistan and Tajik forces regularly clash with Afghan drug smugglers.The return
to power of the Taliban in Afghanistan last August has led some observers to fear that Tajikistan, the poorest of the former Soviet states,
