A Final Deal Along Central Asia’s Deadliest Border
It took some 33 years, but on December 4, Kyrgyz and Tajik officials reached a final agreement on delimitation of the last sections of their 972-kilometer border.
It is a relief for the entire Central Asian region.
In those 33 years the five Central Asian countries (including Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan) have been independent, the only open conflicts between the armed forces of two Central Asian countries happened between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
In the southern Kyrgyz city of Batken on December 4, Kyrgyz security chief Kamchybek Tashiyev and Tajik counterpart Saimumin Yatimov announced an agreement that Tajik state news agency Khovar said “fully completed the delimitation of the remaining sections of the Tajik-Kyrgyz state border.”
Most of the Kyrgyz-Tajik border runs through the Pamir Mountains. The eastern part, approximately two-thirds of the common frontier, passes through remote and sparsely inhabited areas. Agreement on where the dividing line between the two countries was easy to reach in this section.
The remaining one-third of the border in the west proved far more difficult to find compromises.
Road near the Kyrgyz village of Ak-Sai. On one side of the road is Tajikistan, the other side, Kyrgyzstan; image: Bruce Pannier
Kyrgyz and Tajiks are two of the oldest peoples in Central Asia. Their ancestors lived in what is now the border area many hundreds of years before there were any borders. The Soviet Union changed that when it created the Kyrgyz and Tajik Soviet Socialist Republics, not only drawing lines on a map, which were redrawn more than once, but also including enclaves on either side of the border.
Roads in the area zigzagged back and forth, one minute through Kyrgyzstan, and few minutes later through Tajikistan, over and over again.
As border tensions began to appear toward the end of the 2000-2010 period, both countries started building roads to avoid crossing into the neighboring state, but the terrain is rugged, limiting possibilities for alternate routes. Also, new road construction is expensive and Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are both poor countries.
The entrance to Tajikistan’s Vorukh enclave; image: Bruce Pannier
The lone road leading from Batken to the Kyrgyz village of Ak-Sai and the Tajik enclave of Vorukh weaves through both countries several times and in some places, the road is the border.
Visible from any village in this area are the snow-capped mountains, but down in the valleys, water has always been a problem.
Like the roads, small rivers and canals meander across both sides of the border, and unsurprisingly, water use is a major source of tensions and has been a significant obstacle in deciding where the border should be.
The first hints of trouble came after 2000 and involved petty vandalism, usually children throwing rocks at passing vehicles with license plates from the neighboring country.
This escalated and after 2010, when incidents of physical altercations between members of border communities started, followed by vandalism targeting homes and businesses in border villages.
Since much of the border was not demarcated, arguments and fights often broke out whenever one country attempted to make any road repairs or build new structures in disputed areas.
On January 11, 2014, a gun battle started between border guards of the two countries. Tajik forces used grenade launchers and mortars to attack the Kyrgyz forces. Several servicemen on both sides were wounded, but after that incident the use of firearms in border disputes increased and after several years exchanges of fire became common when tensions flared up between border communities and border guards.
Both sides sent more troops with heavier weaponry, including artillery and armored vehicles.
Scuffles that previously involved throwing sticks and stones, turning into brief but often deadly fire-fights.
The situation continued to grow gradually worse until April 28, 2021, when the militaries of the two countries engaged in fighting that included mortar and artillery fire and lasted for three days.
At one point Tajik forces crossed into Kyrgyz territory. Tajik helicopter gunships also fired on Kyrgyz villages.
Thirty-six Kyrgyz citizens and 19 Tajik citizens were killed.
Thousands of people were evacuated from communities on both sides of the border, and there was extensive damage to homes and other structures on both sides of the border.
As bad as that was, the fighting that broke out on September 14, 2022, was worse and occurred over a wider area than in 2021. Again, Tajik forces briefly crossed into Kyrgyz territory, and Kyrgyz authorities had to evacuate some 150,000 of its citizens from the area.
Kyrgyzstan also used its recently acquired Turkish military drones to attack Tajik positions.
At least 83 people on the Tajik side were killed, and 63 on the Kyrgyz side.
At that time, some 664 kilometers of the 972-kilometer border had been demarcated.
After the conflict of 2022, both countries were more serious in their efforts to reach a border deal. Delegations from the two countries have met almost every month since September 2022 to agree on new sections of the border, and Tashiyev and Yatimov met more than a dozen times.
At the December 4 meeting in Batken, both Tashiyev and Yatimov noted the agreement still needed to be ratified by their countries’ parliaments and there are other procedural matters that need to be worked out.
It is a positive development, but ultimately, the success or failure of the deal will be decided by the villagers living along the border. Animosity between communities along the border has grown in the last decade, often fueled by local officials who rejected giving even one square centimeter of what they considered their land to the other country.
Will these villagers abide with the decisions of their governments when water is scarce or when land they have used for years for farming or herding is given to the neighboring country?
