Flights resume between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan

Flights have resumed between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan for the first time in seven years.

Air traffic between the two Central Asian Republics was suspended as a security measure during Tajikistan's six-year civil war, and passengers have been using time-consuming land or rail routes instead.

Earlier today, a plane carrying Tajik officials and journalists made the hour-long inaugural flight from the Tajik capital, Dushanbe, to the Uzbek capital, Tashkent.

A regular passenger service will start on a weekly basis from the fourteenth of August and will cost around sixty dollars. The agreement to restart flights was signed by the Uzbek and Tajik presidents in June.

Correspondents say it's another sign of the growing improvement in the often tense relations between the two states.

From the newsroom of the BBC World Service