The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) will offer measures to relieve tensions along the Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan border, Valery Revenko, the Aide to the Russian Defense Minister for International Cooperation, twitted on March 4.
According to him, the meeting of the heads of divisions of international military cooperation of the armed forces of the CSTO member nations held in Belarus’ capital, Minsk, has developed proposals to relieve tensions along on dispute stretches of the Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan border.
RIA Novosti, citing Revenko, says the meeting participants discussed the military and political situation in the CSTO areas of responsibility, clarified the activities of international military cooperation under the rotating chairmanship of Belarus, and developed proposals for defense ministers on relieving tensions along the disputed stretches of the Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan border.
As it had been reported earlier, the then Secretary-General of the CSTO Stanislav Zas stated at a joint meeting of the CSTO foreign ministers, defense ministers and security council secretaries in Yerevan, Armenia, in late November last year that the CSTO is ready to provide assistance in normalizing the situation along the Kyrgyz-Tajik border.
Recall, Kyrgyzstan has asked a Russia-led security bloc to deploy peacekeeping troops at its disputed border with Tajikistan to ensure a ceasefire holds between the two countries.
Kyrgyz Defense Minister Baktybek Bekbolotov told reporters in Bishkek on October 19 last year that he had discussed that issue with the CSTO Secretary-General Stanislav Zas earlier in the month.
“An independent mediator must stay between us, such as a limited group of CSTO troops, with the goal of maintaining a ceasefire and the withdrawal of heavy weaponry from the border. If they solve these two issues, then the political goals on the delimitation and demarcation of the Kyrgyz-Tajik border can start being discussed,” Bekbolotov said.
Both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, along with Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan and Russia are member nations of the Collective Security Treaty Organization.
Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have not yet resolved the border delineation problem. Many border areas in Central Asia have been disputed since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The situation is particularly complicated near the numerous exclaves in the Fergana Valley, where the borders of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan meet.
The border of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan has been the scene of unrest repeatedly since the collapse of the former Soviet Union.
The September 14-17, 2022 violence marked the worst hostilities between the two countries, which have had more than 140 border-related conflicts in the past decade.
According to Tajik President Emomali Rahmon, 63 percent — or some 625 kilometers of the roughly 980-kilometer border between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan — has been demarcated so far, as the sides work to define the remaining areas.
