Aid Trucks Reach Isolated Uzbek, Kyrgyz Districts

A group of trucks with relief supplies from Uzbekistan to the Sokh exclave arrive at a checkpoint.

BATKEN, Kyrgyzstan -- Uzbek trucks carrying food and gasoline have crossed the Kyrgyz border and reached Uzbekistan's Sokh and Shokhimardon districts.

The exclaves are fully surrounded by Kyrgyzstan's Batken Province.

The two Uzbek districts had been cut off since Sokh residents, mainly ethnic Tajiks, clashed on January 5-6 with Kyrgyz border guards over installation of electric power lines to a new Kyrgyz border post.

Also on January 25, Kyrgyz trucks carrying humanitarian aid were also allowed into the tiny Kyrgyz district of Barak, which is surrounded by Uzbek territory.

Barak was also cut off after the events in Sokh.

All of the aid trucks were stuck at the border for days as Kyrgyz and Uzbek officials negotiated the deliveries of vital supplies.