DUSHANBE, May 3, 2016, Asia-Plus – On Saturday April 30, Tajik Foreign Minister Sorojiddin Aslov met in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, with Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev to discuss cooperation.
According to the Kyrgyz president’s official website, Atambayev and Aslov discussed state and prospects of further expansion of bilateral cooperation between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
While in Bishkek, Aslov also held talks with his Kyrgyz counterpart Erlan Abdyldayev. The two reportedly discussed a broad range of issues related to political, economic, cultural and humanitarian cooperation between the two countries.
The two also exchanged views on problems of regional security and cross-border trade between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Meanwhile, a source in the Tajik government says that Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev is expected to pay an official visit to Tajikistan on May 12.
While in Dushanbe, Kyrgyz president together with leaders of Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan will participate in foundation stone laying ceremony of CASA-1000 Project, envisaging transmission of surplus electric power available in summer months (May 1 to September 30) from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to Afghanistan and Pakistan.
A new package of cooperation documents is expected to be signed in Dushanbe during Kyrgyz president’s visit to Tajikistan, including an agreement on mutual border between the two countries, the source said.
The two countries have been unable to agree on the location of the border they inherited when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. They have delimited only about half of the 971 kilometers. As the population in the dense Ferghana Valley grows, it has become increasingly difficult to demarcate the contested sections, where valuable agricultural land often lies.
The latest skirmishes sparked by a territorial dispute between residents along the Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan border escalated on August 4, 2015 leaving several people injured and damaging multiple homes.
The area at the focus of this and much previous unrest lies on the jagged frontier where the east of Tajikistan’s Sughd province and Kyrgyzstan’s Batken province meet.
