DUSHANBE, March 11, 2014, Asia-Plus — Aide to the Tajik President for National Security, Sherali Khairulloyev, met with residents of the village of Khojai Alo and the Vorukh jamoat in the Tajik northern city of Isfara on March 11.
An official source at the Sughd regional administration says issues related to the Vorukh jamoat were a major topic of the meeting.
“Khairulloyev, in particular, noted that the last round of border talks between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan that took place in Dushanbe on March 3 was hopeful and said that the next round will be held on March 15,” the source said.
We will recall that Tajik Deputy Prime Minister Murodali Alimardon, who is co-chairman of the Tajik-Kyrgyz intergovernmental commission for demarcation and delimitation of disputed segments of mutual border, met with residents of Vorukh on February 11. He reportedly informed them of measures taken by the Tajik government to stabilize the situation on the disputed segments of the Tajik-Kyrgyz border and stressed that the government of Tajikistan would take all necessary measures to reunify Vorukh with the territory of Tajikistan.
Vorukh is the jamoat that forms part of an exclave of Tajikistan within Kyrgyzstan. There are several such enclaves, and they all come from Stalin”s drawing of borders in the 1930s.
Tajikistan has suggested working with documents and maps from the 1924-1927 period for delimitation and demarcation of the border while Kyrgyzstan has suggested using the maps of the bilateral commissions from the periods of 1958-1959 and 1989.
The maps of the early 1920s show the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic as incorporating Vorukh within its borders. But the maps of the 1950s show Vorukh as an exclave within the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic.
