DUSHANBE: Tajikistan on Friday marked two decades since independence from the former Soviet Union as its leader pledged robust economic growth in Central Asia's poorest nation.
"Our independence turns 20 years," said Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon at a festive ceremony on the eve of the independence in Tajik capital Dushanbe.
"The first 10 years were spent overcoming internal conflict. In the last 10 years, we embarked on restoration of our country," he said.
Rakhmon promised to speed up economic growth to raise living standards for the 7.5 million Tajiks.
"The government of Tajikistan intends to decisively secure the development of the national economy on the levels of 7 to 8 percent in the next five years," said Rakhmon, who changed his last name from Rakhmonov in 2007 in a bid to return to pre-Soviet cultural roots.
Tajikistan suffered through intense violence in the 1990s, when it was torn by a civil war between Islamist forces and backers of Rakhmon's secular government.
The war, which started in 1992, cost 150,000 lives and forced more than one million people to move abroad until it ended in 1997.
Rakhmon, 58, has ruled Persian-speaking Tajikistan since 1992. His rule has been plagued by corruption, vote rigging and unemployment that has forced around half of the male population to leave for Russia as migrant workers.
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