Summary: Non-signatory Tajikistan supports the convention, but has not taken any steps to join it. Tajikistan abstained from voting on a key UN resolution on the convention in December 2016. It has participated as an observer in the convention’s meetings, most recently in 2014. Tajikistan claims to be in de facto compliance with the convention as it states it has never used, produced, transferred, or stockpiled cluster munitions. It is contaminated by the remnants of cluster munitions used during its civil war in the 1990s.

Policy

The Republic of Tajikistan has not acceded to the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Tajikistan has been considering its accession to the convention since 2008, but has not taken any steps towards accession except for consultations.[1] In November 2016, the director of Tajikistan Mine Action Center told the Cluster Munition Coalition (CMC) that there has been no progress towards accession.[2] Previously, in 2014, Tajikistan informed States Parties that it is was still considering joining and affirmed that it “is fulfilling all obligations under the convention.”[3]

In December 2016, Tajikistan abstained from the vote on a UN General Assembly (UNGA) resolution that calls on states outside the Convention on Cluster Munitions to “join as soon as possible.”[4] It also abstained from the vote on the first UNGA resolution on the convention in December 2015.[5]

Tajikistan participated in the Oslo Process that created the Convention on Cluster Munitions and endorsed both the Oslo Declaration (committing to the conclusion of an international instrument banning cluster munitions that cause unacceptable harm to civilians) and the Wellington Declaration (committing to negotiate a convention banning cluster munitions based on the Wellington draft text). However, Tajikistan did not participate in the formal negotiations of the convention in Dublin in May 2008, even as an observer, and did not attend the convention’s Signing Conference in Oslo in December 2008.[6]

Tajikistan has participated as an observer in every Meeting of States Parties of the convention except the Sixth Meeting of States Parties in Geneva in September 2016. It did not attend the convention’s First Review Conference in 2015.

Tajikistan is a State Party to the Mine Ban Treaty. It is also party to the Convention on Conventional Weapons.

Production, transfer, use, and stockpiling

Tajikistan has stated several times that it does not use, produce, transfer, or stockpile cluster munitions.[7] In 2011, the Ministry of Defense said that Tajik forces had never used cluster munitions.[8] It also informed the CMC that it had sent the Office of the President an official letter confirming that Tajikistan has no stockpiled cluster munitions following an inventory of weapons depots and other storage facilities.[9]

Cluster munitions were used in Tajikistan during its civil war in the 1990s, but the forces responsible for this use have never been conclusively identified. Unexploded ShOAB-0.5 and AO-2.5RT submunitions have been found in the town of Gharm in the Rasht Valley.[10] A representative of Tajikistan’s Ministry of Interior said that Uzbek forces used cluster munitions in Rasht Valley and Ramit Valley in the 1990s and said Tajik forces had no capacity to use cluster munitions.[11]