Russian and Tajik troops wrapped up a three-day joint anti-terror military exercise at a military base on the outskirt of Tajik capital of Dushanbe on Wednesday, reports reaching here said.

Speaking at a news conference after the exercise, Tajik Chief of the General Staff Ramil Nadirov said the military exercise was focused on repelling a hypothetical intrusion by a large number of terrorists.

The drill involved a total of 1,100 servicemen from Tajikistan and the Russian military base in the central Asian nation, 100 armored vehicles, two fighter jets, two helicopters and heavy artillery, Nadirov said.

Tajik President Emomali Rakhmonov, Defense Minister Sherali Khairullaev and Russian ambassador to Tajikistan Ramazan Abdulatipov, who were present at the drill on Wednesday, hailed the exercise as having achieved the expected results.

In October 2004, Rakhmonov and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed an agreement to establish a permanent base for Russia's 201st Motorized Rifle Division that has been stationed in Tajikistan since the end of the Soviet-Afghan war in 1989.

The Tajik facility is the second that Russia has established abroad since the collapse of the Soviet Union, following a base in Kyrgyzstan established in 2003.

Source: Xinhua