The security chiefs of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan say the two Central Asian nations have preliminarily agreed on more than 90 percent of the border between the two former Soviet republics during negotiations held in Kyrgyzstan's southern region of Batken.
The chief of Kyrgyzstan's State Committee for National Security, Kamchybek Tashiev, and his Tajik counterpart, Saimumin Yatimov, said on December 12 that talks on the remaining disputed segments of the border will continue.
On December 11, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov expressed hope that talks on border issues will be completed by the spring of 2024.
Last week, officials of the two nations said they agreed on another 24 kilometers of the border after talks were held in Tajikistan’s northern town of Buston, near the Kyrgyz border.
The delimitation and demarcation of the Kyrgyz-Tajik border has been an issue for decades but turned into an extremely urgent problem in recent years after several deadly clashes took place along disputed segments of the frontier.
In spring 2021, an armed conflict along one segment of the border left 36 Kyrgyz nationals, including two children, dead and 154 injured on the Kyrgyz side.
Tajik authorities officially said that 19 Tajik citizens were killed and 87 were injured during the clashes. However, local residents told RFE/RL’s Tajik Service at the time that the number of people killed during the clashes was much higher.
In all, the border between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan is 972 kilometers, the most of which have now been agreed upon.
Many border areas in Central Asian former Soviet republics have been disputed since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
The situation is particularly complicated near the numerous exclaves in the volatile Ferghana Valley, where the borders of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kyrgyzstan meet.
Tensions in those areas have led to clashes between local residents and border guards of the three countries.