Putin Confronted by Frustrated Tajik President Demanding Respect: Video

The leader of Tajikistan spoke at a summit on Friday demanding that Russia treat his country with respect.

Tajikistan is located in Central Asia, between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, and from 1929 to 1991, was a republic controlled by the Soviet Union. The country declared independence amid the Soviet collapse in 1991, and since 1994 has been ruled by President Emomali Rahmon.

Speaking at a Central Asia-Russia summit in Astana, the capital city of Kazakhstan, Rahmon sharply criticized Russia for the seeming disrespect it shows to its strategic allies in Central Asia. He specifically called for Russian President Vladimir Putin, who was at the summit, to treat Tajikistan with respect, and not as a former Soviet Republic.

"Why do we have to beg [Russia to attend] some miserable forum in Tajikistan?" Rahmon asked. "I gave instructions to the Foreign Ministry, I even talked to you to ask [Russia] to attend at least at the ministerial level. No, at the level of deputy ministers. Is this what Tajikistan deserves, a strategic partner?"

"We aren't 100-200 million, but we want to be respected. Did we violate something? Did we greet each other inappropriately? There's no need to invest a lot of money [in Tajikistan]. Vladimir Vladimirovich [Putin]. I ask you not to pursue a policy towards the Central Asian countries as [if they are] the former Soviet Union," he added.

Amid his mounting woes in Ukraine, Putin has, in recent weeks, also received considerable pushback from leaders in Russia's foreign ally nations. In September, the Russian president became the subject of online mockery from some after he was seemingly left waiting for an extended period of time by leaders from Turkey, Azerbaijan, India, and Kyrgyzstan at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit in Samarkand, Uzbekistan. Putin, the commentators said, has in the past been accused of making other foreign dignitaries wait at such meetings.

"What a montage. Putin, who has a history of power trips in the form of making foreign leaders wait for him (including Obama)...gets a taste of his own medicine," CNN's Bianna Golodryga tweeted at the time. "From the leaders of Turkey, Azerbaijan, India, and Kyrgyzstan."

"Putin used to make everyone wait, now he is the one waiting awkwardly," Anton Gerashchenko, an adviser to Ukraine's minister of internal affairs, tweeted. "Times changed."

Tajikistan is also among the numerous former Soviet republics embroiled in conflict at the moment, with the country engaged in shelling its neighbor, Kyrgyzstan. Armenia and Azerbaijan have also recently seen conflict boiling over along their shared border, with each side blaming the other for the fighting. Russia, alongside Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Armenia, are each part of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), a peace agreement among post-Soviet nations that could be jeopardized by these conflicts.

Newsweek reached out to Russian officials for comment.