In April, Kyrgyzstan signed a border delimitation agreement with southern neighbor Tajikistan, ending a long-running and at times violent feud along the two countries’ frontier. Now Kyrgyzstan is taking steps to resolve its border disagreements with its northern neighbor Kazakhstan.
The Joint Project
Representatives from Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan met in Bishkek on May 22 to discuss the impending construction of an industrial transport-logistics complex on their border. Kazakhstan is building similar complexes along its borders with other neighboring countries (China, Russia, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan).
The idea for the Kazakh-Kyrgyz facility was approved in May 2024, and work is scheduled to start next year. Economically, it is not a huge project, but symbolically, it could be a breakthrough ending years of aggravation connected to the country’s border crossings.
The aim of the complex is “to jointly produce, store and sell medicines, textiles, as well as dairy, meat, and vegetable products.”
In itself, the venture is laudable, but the location of the complex is what is interesting.
This trade and logistics complex will occupy 3.6 square kilometers of territory in Kazakhstan and 4 square kilometers in Kyrgyzstan at a place not far from the Ak-Tilek (Kyrgyzstan) – Karasu (Kazakhstan) border crossing. Kyrgyzstan’s Ak-Tilek and the other four border crossings with Kazakhstan have been in the news for more than seven years due to long lines of trucks on the Kyrgyz side waiting to cross into Kazakhstan. This has become a sore point in what have usually been good relations between the two countries.
The Legacy of Almazbek Atambayev
Ever since the Soviet Union disintegrated in late 1991 and the five Central Asian states became independent, relations between Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan have been the best among any two states in Central Asia. This was evident along their border, which compared to the others among the Central Asian states remained lightly guarded and relatively easy to cross.
That changed in autumn 2017, due to an incident that was unrelated to the actual Kazakh-Kyrgyz border.
Kyrgyzstan was preparing for a presidential election scheduled for October 15, 2017. The president at the time, Almazbek Atambayev, was leaving office, in accordance with the country’s constitution that permitted a president only a single term. Atambayev had picked a successor, Sooronbai Jeenbekov. The leading opponent was popular businessman Omurbek Babanov, who was polling ahead of Jeenbekov in the run-up to the election.
In mid-September, Babanov visited Kazakhstan and met with then-President Nursultan Nazarbayev.
Atambayev was furious. On October 7, he said that the “Kazakh authorities want to force their candidate on us.” Atambayev criticized the way Kazakhstan spent revenue, hinting that average Kazakh citizens did not seem to enjoy the fruits of the vast wealth of the country.
On October 10, without warning, Kazakhstan closed its crossing points to traffic from Kyrgyzstan. Later, Kazakhstan’s security service said the restrictions were part of a planned border operation and claimed to have registered 112 violations in less than 48 hours.
As the line of trucks grew on the Kyrgyz side of the border, Kyrgyz officials ordered special points be established near the border to distribute food and provide medical treatment for those stranded due to the border closure.
Atambayev refused to back down. On October 13, he said the Kyrgyz people have three millennia of history and wouldn’t be cowed by a three day blockade, and vowed that Kyrgyzstan would never elect the “flunky” of another country.
Traffic slowly started to move across the border into Kazakhstan again, but long lines remained. Jeenbekov won the election, though accusations of state interference and vote-rigging were rife.
None of that stopped Atambayev. Kyrgyzstan complained to the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) in which both Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan are members. Kyrgyzstan also sent an official complaint to the World Trade Organization (WTO).
On October 18, Atambayev accused Kazakhstan of “cutting us off from Russia.” However, Atambayev shortly attempted to apologize, saying he earlier “emotionally spoke about Nazarbayev,” then blamed “[Kazakh] oligarchs who do not think about Kazakhstan and Nazarbayev.”
Kyrgyzstan was admitted to the EAEU in 2015, meaning that the other members (Russia, Armenia, Belarus, and Kazakhstan) were obligated to help meet EAEU regulations.
On October 20, 2017, at Atambayev’s urging, Kyrgyzstan’s parliament moved to reject the $100 million Kazakhstan was prepared to gift Kyrgyzstan to help the latter meet EAEU standards.
The Current Pattern
Prior to Atambayev’s undiplomatic outbursts, there had never been any serious or regular hold-ups moving goods across the Kazakh-Kyrgyzstan frontier. Since that time, there have been periods every year when trucks have been backed up for several kilometers on the Kyrgyz side of the border.
In September 2020, the Asian Development Bank said the average waiting time for trucks at the Ak-Tilek border crossing was 34.4 hours.
Kyrgyzstan has continued to complain to the WTO and EAEU. Kazakhstan countered that its heightened checks are warranted since Kazakh border guards continued to uncover numerous violations among the vehicles trying to cross the state line.
In August 2023, during the third straight summer of drought, Kazakhstan’s Ministry of Ecology and Natural Resources said the southern Zhambyl Province had stopped receiving water from Kyrgyzstan’s Kirov reservoir. Kyrgyzstan’s Agriculture Ministry replied that the water level at the Kirov reservoir was less than 20% of the normal amount.
A few days later, the process for trucks crossing from Kyrgyzstan into Kazakhstan slowed significantly (six per hour at the Ak-Tilek crossing point).
The Last Border
Kyrgyzstan has never had any serious border issues with China – at least after Kyrgyzstan ceded some 90,000 hectares of land to China in 1999.
The border with Uzbekistan was the most troublesome for Kyrgyzstan for a long time, until the two countries finally reached a delimitation agreement in 2022. The recent agreement with Tajikistan, meanwhile, holds the promise of ending tensions along a frontier that led to clashes between the two countries’ militaries in 2021 and 2022.
The occasional traffic problem along the Kazakh-Kyrgyz border paled in comparison with the earlier situations along the Kyrgyz-Uzbek and Kyrgyz-Tajik borders.
Now that issues along its western and southern borders seem to have been resolved, that leaves crossings with Kazakhstan as the last border where Kyrgyzstan has problems.
The choice of an area near the Ak-Tilek border crossing for the trade and logistics complex is seemingly no accident. While long lines of trucks have occasionally been reported at each of the five Kazakh-Kyrgyz border crossings since 2017, Ak-Tilek is the most frequently affected.
Kazakh-Kyrgyz cooperation on this new complex near one of the busiest crossings is a step toward resolving the problems of easing passage across state lines. Reports on the meeting in Bishkek noted that the two sides discussed “matters connected with modernizing” facilities at border crossings.
Kyrgyz officials have spoken publicly about the revenue the country has lost due to delays crossing the Kazakh border. Officials from the two countries have met many times to discuss the problem, but hold-ups persist.
Jointly produced goods in need of shipping from a facility on their common border near a major crossing point is a sign of increased cooperation on the border and seems to be a significant move toward ending a transit problem that has become a perennial sticking point in relations between the two nations.
