DUSHANBE, January 14, 2014, Asia-Plus — Tajikistan’s Ministry of Defense (MoD) has denied reports about concentration of troops along the border with Kyrgyzstan as absolutely baseless.
Some Russian and Kyrgyz media source have reported that Tajik military units allegedly moved to the Tajik-Kyrgyz border. They have also reported that mobilization was announced in Tajikistan’s border areas.
“These reports do not correspond to the facts and they do not stand up to criticism,” Faridoun Mahmadaliyev, a spokesman for a MoD, told Asia-Plus in an interview.
According to him, “somebody wants to pass the desirable for reality.”
We will recall that according to Kyrgyz officials, five Kyrgyz border guards, one Kyrgyz policeman, and three Tajik border guards were hospitalized with injuries on January 11 after tensions escalated into exchanges of gunfire along the Kyrgyz-Tajik border.
In a statement released on January11, Tajikistan Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) blamed the Kyrgyz side for starting the problem. The Tajik statement said the incident started on January 11 at 12:20 after Kyrgyz workers using armed cover of soldiers started doing work on a road, part of which passes through Tajikistan.
Meanwhile, Kyrgyz authorities noted last Saturday that a clash on the border of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan can be regarded as a military operation planned in advance by the Tajik side.
On January 13, Tajik and Kyrgyz delegations met in the administrative center of Kyrgyzstan’s Batken region and they reportedly reached an agreement on joint patrol of the disputed segments of mutual border.
There were several clashes between Tajik and Kyrgyz nationals along the border in 2013. Many areas along the borders in Central Asia remain in dispute after collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
