Military manpower - reaching military age annually: males: 170,328 (1997 est.)
Military expenditures - dollar figure: $875 million (1994 est.); note - based on official budget data that understate actual spending
Military expenditures - percent of GDP: 8% (1994 est.)
Transnational Issues
Disputes - international: Golan Heights is Israeli occupied; Hatay question with Turkey; dispute with upstream riparian Turkey over Turkish water development plans for the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers; Syrian troops in northern, central, and eastern Lebanon since October 1976
Illicit drugs: a transit point for Lebanese and Turkish refined cocaine going to Europe and heroin and hashish bound for regional and Western markets ______________________________________________________________________
TAJIKISTAN
Introduction
Current issues: Tajikistan has experienced three changes of government since it gained independence in September 1991. The current president, Emomali RAHMONOV, was elected in November 1994, yet has been in power since 1992. The country is suffering through its fourth year of a civil conflict, with no clear end in sight. Underlying the conflict are deeply rooted regional and clan-based animosities that pit a government consisting of people primarily from the Kulob (Kulyab), Khujand (Leninabad), and Hisor (Hissar) regions against a secular and Islamic-led opposition from the Gharm, Gorno-Badakhshan, and Qurghonteppa (Kurgan-Tyube) regions. Government and opposition representatives have held periodic rounds of UN-mediated peace talks and agreed in September 1994 to a cease-fire which has been periodically extended. Russian-led peacekeeping troops are deployed throughout the country, and Russian-commanded border guards are stationed along the Tajikistani-Afghan border.
@Tajikistan:Geography