Kyrgyz national Z. Dostmatov has been detained in Moscow at the request of Tajikistan authorities, Kyrgyzstan Foreign Ministry said on March 1, 2022.
Dostmatov was reportedly detained on February 23.
Kyrgyz MFA press service said on March 1 that the Kyrgyz Embassy in Moscow is currently taking measures to clarify the circumstances of the arrest and the speedy release of this citizen of Kyrgyzstan.
Meanwhile, the Kyrgyz Embassy in Moscow says that according to available information, the Kyrgyz national during the events specified in Tajikistan’s request was in the Russian Federation.
“Documentary confirmation of this fact is expected, which will confirm the falsification of the criminal proceedings instituted against the Kyrgyz national Z. Dosmatov as well as the groundlessness and illegality of the charges brought against him,” says a statement released by the Kyrgyz Embassy on March 1.
As it had been reported earlier, several citizens of Tajikistan were detained in Russia in November last year at the request of the Kyrgyz authorities. They were later released.
One of them, Dilovar Jourayev, has told Asia-Plus that Kyrgyzstan authorities put more than 25 residents of Tajik border villages on the wanted list, accusing them of participating in border clashes.
Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have not yet resolved the border delineation problem. Many border areas in Central Asia have been disputed since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The situation is particularly complicated near the numerous exclaves in the Fergana Valley, where the borders of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan meet.
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.
