DUSHANBE, February 13, 2012, Asia-Plus – A certain success was reached during a meeting of the Tajik-Kyrgyz Intergovernmental Commission for Demarcation and Delimitation (ICDD) that took place in Dushanbe on February 6-11, the Tajik MFA information department reports.
The border delineation negotiations will be continued and the next meeting will take place in Bishkek, Kyrgyzstan, the source said.
To-date, some 50 percent of Tajikistan’s common border with Kyrgyzstan has reportedly been delineated and negotiations on demarcation and delimitation of border with Kyrgyzstan are going on.
A total length of Tajikistan’s common border with Kyrgyzstan is some 1,000 kilometers.
It is to be noted that a report “Potential for Peace and Threats of Conflict: Development Analysis of Cross-Border Communities in Isfara District of the Republic of Tajikistan (Vorukh, Chorkuh, Surkh, Shurab) and Batken District of the Kyrgyz Republic (Ak-Sai, Ak-Tatyr, and Samarkandek)” released in the framework of the “Conflict Prevention and Mitigation in the Ferghana Valley” Project in July 2011 notes that during 1955-1957, due to the discontent of cross-border communities over land rights, a Tajik- Kyrgyz Joint Commission revised and published a new map in 1957. The map was approved by the Council of Ministers and the Central Executive Committee of Kyrgyz Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. Most importantly, however, the Supreme Council of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Tajikistan did not accept the new borderlines and the new map.
In the current disputes, the Kyrgyz side likes to refer to a 1989 map, which was also produced during the Soviet period by a Tajik-Kyrgyz Joint Commission, marking the borders in accordance to actual usage of land and by residence of Tajik and Kyrgyz communities. The Tajik side reportedly does not recognize legitimacy of the last two maps (from 1957 and 1989). The maps are believed to violate Tajikistan’s territorial integrity. Instead, Tajikistan has offered to use the 1927 map, which at the time was legally accepted and recognized by both Tajiks and Kyrgyz.
