Geography of Tajikistan has headwaters in Afghanistan and Tajikistan. The other neighbors are the former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan (to the west and the north) and Kyrgyzstan (to the north). The lower elevations of Tajikistan are divided into northern and southern regions by a complex of three mountain chains that constitute the westernmost extension of the massive Tian Shan system. Running essentially parallel from east to west, the chains are the Turkestan, Zeravshan (Zarafshan), and Hisor (Gissar) mountains. The last of these lies just north of the capital, Dushanbe, which is situated in west-central Tajikistan. More than half of Tajikistan lies above an
Byelorussian Soviet Socialist Republic to ensure a degree of balance in the General Assembly, which, the USSR opined, was unbalanced in favor of the Western Bloc. A Byelorussian, G.G. Chernushchenko, served as President of the United Nations Security Council from January–February 1975. In its last years during "perestroika" under Mikhail Gorbachev, the Supreme Soviet of Byelorussian SSR declared sovereignty on 27 July 1990 over Soviet laws. Following the failed coup in August, the republic declared independence from the Soviet Union on 25 August 1991. The republic was renamed the Republic of Belarus on 19 September 1991. On 8 December 1991 it was a signatory,