Moscow and Dushanbe reached an agreement on Friday on a Russian military base in Tajikistan, which will remain in the Central Asian country until at least 2042, a Russian presidential aide said.

The deal was sealed during a meeting of Russian President Vladimir Putin with his Tajik counterpart Emomali Rahmon in the Tajik capital of Dushanbe, Putin's aide, Yury Ushakov, said Friday, as cited by RIA Novosti.

The current agreement on the Russian base in Tajikistan was set to expire in 2014, but was prolonged for 30 years, with the option of repeatedly extending it for five years after that date, Ushakov said.

Russia sought to extend the deal for 49 years, while Tajikistan wanted to limit it to 10 years; this discrepancy raised the possibility of a delay of the new agreement.

Media reports said earlier Tajikistan wanted USD 250 M a year to host the base, which includes 7,000 troops across three locations.

But Ushakov said on Friday that Russia would get the base "almost free of charge." He gave no further details.

In another deal sealed by Putin and Rahmon on Friday, Russia will also extend residency and work permits for Tajik nationals.

Money sent home from Russia by Tajik workers in 2011 amounted to USD 3 B, making up around half of the impoverished Central Asian republic's GDP.

Under the current deal, Russia does not pay anything for the base Tajikistan, but is required to provide military and technical assistance to impoverished Tajikistan, which weathered a bloody civil war in the 1990s and is currently a major drug trafficking route in the region.

Recently, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that Russian military bases in Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan might be used in order to stabilize Central Asia after the USA and NATO pull out of Afghanistan in 2014.

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