In Search of Support Points: Iran in Central Asia

... communications infrastructure construction a key element in diversifying transport routes. Iran is involved in building hydropower plants and pipelines, and plans to lay a power line from its border through Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif, up to the borders of Tajikistan. Tajikistan occupies a particular place in relations between Iran and the Central Asian states, which is due not so much to economic and political considerations, but to ethnic and cultural affinity. In contrast to the Turkic peoples that dominate the region, the Tajiks together and Iranians belong to the Indo-European linguistic ...