Kyrgyz-Tajik Row After Border Clash

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http://iwpr.net/report-news/kyrgyz-tajik-row-after-border-clash



Two governments take a stand after frontier guards clash over a controversial road project.

Kyrgyz-Tajik Row After Border Clash
By Timur Toktonaliev, Lola Olimova, Nazarali Pirnazarov - Central Asia
RCA Issue 724,
15 Jan 14

Tensions are still running high around a Tajik enclave in southern Kyrgyzstan after border troops clashed on January 11. While frictions are common on the complex borders that run through the Ferghana Valley, this latest incident stands out because it escalated into a full-scale diplomatic row.

Kyrgyzstan recalled its ambassador from Dushanbe for consultations, and the country’s border protection service issued an angry statement after its Tajik counterparts turned up for talks on the ground in full combat gear. The January 14 statement said Kyrgyzstan’s frontier guards were coordinating with other parts of the security services and were ready for anything, even to “repel a possible armed attack”.

A later press release the same day sounded a more conciliatory note. It said the heads of the two countries’ border services had talked by phone and “resolved” the immediate crisis. The Kyrgyz received assurances that Tajikistan was seeking to deal with the dispute through diplomatic channels and was keen to avoid any further escalation of tensions.

The January 11 incident took place on the outskirts of Vorukh, an island of Tajik territory entirely enclosed within Kyrgyzstan’s Batken region. It is home to around 40,000 ethnic Tajiks, and Kyrgyz residents living on either side of it used to have to drive through it to get to different parts of Batken, To avoid the occasional frictions this caused, the Kyrgyz authorities are building a road intended to bypass the enclave completely. (See Tajiks, Kyrgyz Grapple With Frontier Issues on a clash that occurred last year.)