Tajikistan takes measures to sign border delineation agreements with neighboring countries

DUSHANBE, January 27, 2011, Asia-Plus — Tajik government is taking measures to sign border delineation agreements with neighboring countries as soon as possible, Foreign Minister Hamrokhon Zarifi announced at a news conference in Dushanbe on January 27.

According to him, Tajikistan is currently conducting negations on delimitation and demarcation of common border with Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.

On the ratification by Tajik parliament of the protocol on delimitation and demarcation of border with China, Zarifi noted, “nobody ceded Tajik territory to China as some media outlets wrote.” This document just completed settlement of the border issue between the two countries, the minister said.

Zarifi also assured that no minerals had been explored on the territory tat was ceded to China.

We will recall that the protocol on delimitation and demarcation of the Tajik-Chinese border was signed by Tajik Foreign Minister Hamrokhon Zarifi and his Chinese counterpart Yang Jiechi in Beijing in April 2010 and Tajik parliament ratified the document on January 12, 2011.

At the time of independence, portions of the Tajik boundary with China were not defined. This boundary dispute was settled in agreements signed in 2002 that ceded 1,000 square kilometers of Pamir mountain range to China in return for China relinquishing claims to 28,000 square kilometers of Tajik lands.