Negotiations between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan on delineation of the disputed stretches of the mutual border are under way and a certain progress has been made, Azizmuhammad Karimzoda, the deputy head of the State Committee on Land Management and Geodesy, told reporters in Dushanbe on July 20.
“In the first half of this year, the sides held two meetings and submitted the opinions for consideration to their governments for further negotiations at higher level,” Karimzoda said.
A total length of Tajikistan’s common border with Kyrgyzstan is some 987.5 kilometers and 519.9 kilometers of it have been delimitated and demarcated so far, Karimzoda noted.
Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have been unable to agree on the location of the border they inherited when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. As the population in the dense Ferghana Valley grows, it has become increasingly difficult to demarcate the contested sections, where valuable agricultural land often lies.
The area at the focus of unrest among residents of border areas of the two countries lies on the jagged frontier where the east of Tajikistan’s Sughd province and Kyrgyzstan’s Batken region meet.
Skirmishes have sparked between residents of Isfara (Tajikistan) and Batken (Kyrgyzstan) districts along the Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan border.
