Radio Liberty’s Kyrgyz Service reported on July 11 that eleven Kyrgyz citizens have been released from Tajik custody after being held on charges of illegally crossing the border amid an ongoing border dispute between the two Central Asian nations.
Aidarbek Khaidarov told RFE/RL on July 10 that he and 10 other Kyrgyz nationals who had been detained at different times since last year were released in recent days. He said he could not give more details as he was ordered not to disclose any information regarding the release.
Khaidarov's father, Umarbai Khaidarov, told RFE/RL that the 11 men were handed to the Kyrgyz side near the Kyzyl-Bel border control point in the southern region of Batken.
"Six of them were taken to the police station in the village of Arka, others were taken to Bishkek, as they most likely have permanent residences in the Chui region," Umarbai Khaidarov said.
Authorities in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have not yet commented officially on the reported release of the 11 Kyrgyz men.
Recall, a court in Kyrgyzstan’s Batken region on June 3 released 11 Tajik citizens who had been held by Kyrgyz authorities on the same charges.
In late May, the chief prosecutors of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan reportedly held talks and agreed on an exchange of citizens detained for illegal border crossing.
Arrests on charges of illegal border crossing by the authorities of the two nations have increased since exchanges of gunfire along a disputed segment of the border in the spring of 2021 left 36 Kyrgyz and 19 Tajik citizens dead.
Many border areas in Central Asia have been disputed since the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991.
The situation is particularly complicated near the numerous exclaves in the volatile Ferghana Valley, where the borders of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan meet.
Tajikistan’s common border with Kyrgyzstan, which is 970 kilometers in length, has been the scene of unrest repeatedly since the collapse of the 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. The border delineation problem has led to conflicts between rival ethnic communities.
To-date, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have held more than 170 meetings and negotiations on delimitation and demarcation of the common border.
Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov said in an exclusive interview with Kabar news agency on April 25 that the parties have agreed on 600 kilometers [of the mutual border] and they have another 300 kilometers left to delimit and demarcate.
