BISHKEK (TCA) — Kyrgyzstan President Almazbek Atambayev has ordered the government to review the country’s international border agreements signed by previous administrations, amid the ongoing tensions on the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border, RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service reports.
At a meeting with Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Erlan Abdyldaev on August 24, Atambayev said that some border agreements with neighboring countries had been signed without transparency and the endorsement of the people and the parliament.
Atambayev said that past border agreements play “a negative role in current efforts to defend Kyrgyzstan’s national interests.”
The president’s order comes amid recent tensions on the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border.
On August 22, seven Uzbek border guards entered disputed territory along the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border in the southern Kyrgyz region of Jalal-Abad. Negotiations are being held between Kyrgyz and Uzbek border officials to resolve the issue.
About 300 of the 1,000-kilometer-long Kyrgyz-Uzbek border has remained in dispute since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Meanwhile, Kyrgyz authorities say negotiations are under way with officials in neighboring Uzbekistan to secure the release of four Kyrgyz nationals detained by Uzbek police in the disputed border area.
Kyrgyzstan’s state border-guard service said on August 24 that the four men are being held at the Yangi-Kurgan district police station in Uzbekistan.
Kyrgyz officials said the four men were detained by the Uzbek police officers deployed by helicopters to a small mountain known as Ungar-Too on August 22.
Ungar-Too is located in disputed territory along the border between the two countries and is the site of a Kyrgyz radio and television transmitter at Kerben where the men work.
Kyrgyz authorities said they sent reinforcements to the border area after the Uzbek police deployment.
