DUSHANBE, May 13, 2014, Asia-Plus – Tajik-Kyrgyz border talks are continuing in the Tajik capital, Dushanbe. The first plenary meeting of the government delegations of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan on border demarcation has concluded and negotiations are continuing today.
The border talks are co-chaired by Tajik Deputy Prime Minister, Murodali Alimardon, and Kyrgyz Deputy Prime Minister, Abdyrahman Mamataliyev.
“The sides have discussed the previous agreement on demarcation and delimitation of the border construction of new roads that will help resolve border problems, use of border pastures and legal foundations for demarcation and delimitation of other disputed areas of the Tajik-Kyrgyz border,” Subhiddin Muhiddinov, a senior consultant to the president’s press center, told Asia-Plus in an interview.
The Kyrgyz government’s press service says the talks have also focused on recent clashes between Kyrgyz and Tajik citizens along the border that left at least 60 people injured.
The major road connecting Tajikistan with Vorukh, Tajikistan’s exclave within Kyrgyzstan was closed for three days after some 1,500 residents of the exclave and a nearby Kyrgyz village clashed on May 7.
According to Kyrgyz media sources, a Kyrgyz gasoline station and at least two Kyrgyz-owned heavy trucks KAMAZ were burned during the clashes.
Meanwhile, some officials from the Tajik northern Sughd province say the clashes broke out after a group of young Kyrgyz men being in a state of drunkenness pelted a car of resident of the Tajik village of Vorukh with stones.
It took border guards and police from both countries several hours to restore order in the area.
We will recall that five Kyrgyz border guards, one Kyrgyz policeman, and two Tajik border guards were hospitalized with injuries on January 11 after tensions escalated into exchanges of gunfire along the Kyrgyz-Tajik border.
The clash started when Tajiks protested Kyrgyzstan’s construction of a bypass road through a disputed area. Tajikistan has requested to halt the construction of the road until the border is delimited.
Kyrgyzstan recalled its ambassador to Tajikistan and unilaterally closed border crossing points (BCPs) on its common border with Tajikistan.
Border crossing points (BCPs) along the Kyrgyz-Tajik border were reopened in late March and early April. The Karamyk and Bordobo border crossings started functioning fully on March 31 while other BCPs were reopened several days later.
About one-third of the nearly 1,000-kilometer border between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan reportedly remains disputed.
