The Prosecutor-General’s Office of Tajikistan has sent a letter to the Prosecutor-General’s Office of Russia asking not to consider Kyrgyzstan’s request for detention of Tajik national Dilovar Jourayev and release him from custody.
Kyrgyzstan accuses Jourayev, who was detained in the Russian city of Novosibirsk on November 8 on request of Kyrgyz authorities, of hooliganism and inciting ethnic enmity.
The letter by the Tajik Prosecutor-General’s Office, in particular says “Dilovar Jourayev was detained in Novosibirsk on request of the Kyrgyz law enforcement authorities and he is accused of organizing riots and hooliganism in the non-delimited border area between Isfara district of Tajikistan’s Sughd province and Batken district of Kyrgyzstan.”
Tajikistan Prosecutor-General Office notes that charges brought by the Kyrgyz authorities against the Tajik national Dilovar Jourayev are politically motivated and asks the Russian Prosecutor-General’s Office to release Dilovar Jourayev from custody.
The Tajik Prosecutor-General’s Office has also sent request to the Prosecutor-General’s Office of Kyrgyzstan for stopping the practice initiation of unfounded criminal cases against Tajik nationals charging them with organizing mass riots along the mutual border.
The border of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan has been the scene of unrest repeatedly since the collapse of the former Soviet Union.
It has been difficult to demarcate the Kyrgyz-Tajik border because over the course of some 100 years Soviet mapmakers drew and redrew the Kyrgyz-Tajik border, incorporating land that had traditionally belonged to one people in the territory of the other Soviet republic.
Exclaves appeared and temporary land use agreements were signed.
All of this survived the collapse of the Soviet Union and people in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have various Soviet-era maps they use to justify their claim to specific areas along the border.
Border talks between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan began in 2002. Only slightly more than half of the 970 kilometers of border shared by the two countries has been demarcated despite decades of attempts to bring the matter to a close. The border delineation problem has led to conflicts between rival ethnic communities.
