Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan reach deal on border dispute

BISHKEK

Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan said on Wednesday that they had reached a border demarcation deal with Tajikistan on the last contested frontier in Central Asia, potentially ending years of territorial dispute.

Sporadic clashes have regularly flared on the mountainous border and the deal comes almost two years after an intense and bloody conflict that killed dozens people in September 2022.

It was reached by the powerful heads of the countries' secret services: Kyrgyzstan's Kamchybek Tashiev and Tajikistan's Saimumin Yatimov.

The government said the neighbors had "reached an agreement and fully completed the drawing of the remaining sections of the Kyrgyz-Tajik state border."

It ordered officials to proceed with demarcation documents after the meeting in the Kyrgyz city of Batken near the Tajik border.

"The meeting took place in an atmosphere of friendship and mutual understanding," the government said, publishing photographs of Kyrgyz and Tajik officials in military uniforms shaking hands.

The Kyrgyz-Tajik border, the most mountainous in the world, is about 975 kilometers long. The border, particularly the stretch that divides Kyrgyzstan’s Batken and Osh regions from Tajikistan’s Sughd, has been a source of tension for more than three decades since both countries gained independence from the Soviet Union.

The announcement comes amid a general improvement of relations between the five Central Asian countries.