One more border crossing point on Tajikistan’s common border with Uzbekistan having international status – Panjakent-Samarqand – is expected to reopen for operation this year ahead of the Navrouz holiday, which is celebrated on March 21. This border crossing point was sealed by Uzbekistan unilaterally eight years ago.
“Today, the sides are carrying out preparatory work to organize border and customs control activities and reopen the border crossing point,” an official source at the Tajik law enforcement authorities told Asia-Plus in an interview.
There are 16 border crossing points (BCPs) on Tajikistan’s common border with Uzbekistan; nine of them have an international status. Twelve BCPs on the Tajik-Uzbek border are located in the northern Sughd province and the remaining four BCPs are located in the southern Khatlon province and Tursunzoda district (central Tajikistan). Only two BPCs having international status – “Dousti” in the Tursunzoda and “Fotehobod” in the Mastchoh district (Sughd province) – now operate twenty-four hours a day. Uzbekistan reportedly sealed the rest of the border crossing points unilaterally.
Recall, the Tajik-Uzbek border delimitation talks have been stalled since February 2009 after Tajikistan rejected Uzbekistan’s proposal to give up some disputed lands to the Tajik side on condition that Tashkent will gain full control of “Farhod” water reservoir along the two countries border.
The first after a break of three yeas border talks between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan took place in Dushanbe on February 21-22, 2012.
On April 24, 2015, top border officials of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan met in the Tajik northern city of Khujand. The two sides reportedly discussed issues around protecting common borders in 2014 and ways of improving the processes of doing so in future. Those included prophylactic and explanatory activities among the population living in border zones; preventing illegal border crossing; upholding signed bilateral protocols on state border protection; and rapidly responding to conflicts, which must be resolved at the level of leaders in border zones via negotiations.
At the end of the meeting, the heads of the two delegations signed an agreement on efficient bilateral cooperation between the respective border services in 2015.
In November 2016, a working group began reviewing solutions to definitively outlining the 10 percent of the 1,333-kilometer border still under discussion.
