Contact Persons: Dr Arne Seifert, Dr Anna Kreikemeyer

When considering the relationship between secular and Islamic forces in Central Asia, the example of Tajikistan deserves special attention. This is the only country where a wing of reformist Islamist forces has emerged from a group of former radical Islamists. Since the end of the civil war, the Islamic Revival Party of Tajikistan (IRPT) has abjured violence. Moreover, since 1997, some members of the former United Tajik Opposition have also become part of the government. The IRPT has recognized the constitution of Tajikistan.

The CORE dialogue project, which has been funded by the German Foreign Office since 2001 and by the Swiss Foreign Office since 2003, aims at providing academic analysis on this secular-Islamist dialogue, thereby giving support to co-operation and coexistence in the Eurasian political space. In 2002, the two German research fellows held three meetings with their twelve Tajik partners and arranged a second round-table discussion summarizing all contributions. The ongoing dialogue in a permanent group allowed for reflection and confidence building. There has been considerable progress in the co-operation among the Tajik partners.

The participants decided to continue working on a regular basis and created a new forum to give continuity to their discussions. In the beginning of 2003, the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva and the Swiss Foreign Ministry joined the project. During 2003, an expanded circle of twenty-two Tajik participants was involved in three rounds of meetings with the project's researchers as well as with international experts.

In June 2003, the Informal German-Tajik Working Group met in Berlin with the members of the German Bundestag, Ms. Hedi Wegener and Mr. Winfried Nachtwei, and representatives of the German Foreign Office. The core issue of discussion was how to use the experience of the Tajik compromise process for a broader dialogue between civilizations and religions in the Eurasian space. The group then carried out an informal visit to Switzerland where the Swiss partners organized meetings with representatives of various political parties in Bern.

Parallel to these activities in the field, CORE, in November 2003, again organized a workshop in Hamburg on "A European Blueprint for Coexistence with Political Islam in Central Asia: Uniting and Dividing Factors" (cf. 6.2.a).

Please download the Information about the CORE Cenral Asia Working Group.