On September 14, 2022, fighting began on the border of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, which led to another escalation of the long-standing conflict between the two countries. The last such episode occurred in April 2021, when about 55 people died on both sides. The bmpd blog brings to the attention of readers the text of Yuri Lyamin, published in the third issue of the magazine "Arms Export" for 2021 and dedicated to last year's events. The author analyzes the main causes of the conflict and comes to disappointing, but predictably accurate conclusions about the possibility of its resumption.
© Nozim Kalandarov / TASS, archiveAt the end of April 2021, another incident on the disputed section of the border of the Kyrgyz Republic and the Republic of Tajikistan ended with the heaviest armed clashes between these countries since their independence.
During the short but bloody clashes, according to official data, dozens of people were killed on both sides, hundreds were injured. In addition, the parties suffered various material losses, including destroyed houses, etc. The sad event itself is aggravated by the fact that both republics are members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), that is, official allies.
The origins of the conflictBefore the revolution, the Central Asian possessions of the Russian Empire included two vassal states - the Emirate of Bukhara and the Khanate of Khiva (Khorezm), as well as the Turkestan Region directly controlled by the center, divided into Transcaspian, Samarkand, Semirechensk, Syrdarya and Fergana regions.
After the October Revolution of 1917 and the victory of the Bolsheviks during the Civil War, the territories of the former Turkestan Region of the Russian Empire were originally part of the Turkestan ASSR (Autonomous Socialist Soviet Republic), which was part of the RSFSR (Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic). In turn, after the liquidation of the monarchies in Bukhara and Khiva in 1920, the Bukhara People's Soviet Republic and the Khorezm People's Soviet Republic were formed there, respectively.
Historically, the borders of both the regions of Turkestan and the state formations of Bukhara and Khorezm were poorly connected with the areas of residence of certain nationalities. This went against the national-territorial principles of building a new Soviet federation - the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Thus, after the formation of the USSR, it was decided to conduct a national demarcation of the republics of Central Asia. This process began in 1924, but the newly formed republics took shape for more than one year - major changes in the legal status and administrative boundaries were completed only in the 1930s. At the same time, many issues remained unresolved, and the actual demarcation on the ground continued in the following decades. Fortunately, the existence within the framework of one large federal state made it possible not to pay special attention to the absence of clearly drawn administrative borders between the republics, to the formation of small enclaves of other republics on the territory of some republics, to the fact that many places of traditional residence of representatives of a particular nationality were outside the territory of their titular republics.
All this manifested itself most vividly during the national-territorial demarcation in the area of the densely populated Ferghana Valley and the surrounding area, where an extremely complex junction of the borders of three Soviet republics was formed: the Uzbek, Tajik and Kyrgyz SSR. Historically, settled Uzbeks and Tajiks lived mainly in the lowland part of the valley, and nomadic Kyrgyz lived in the foothills and mountains surrounding the valley, so they tried to divide these territories accordingly. That is, the central part of the Ferghana Valley was transferred to Uzbekistan, the western part to Tajikistan, and from the south, east and west they were covered by the foothill areas of the valley and mountains that had retreated to Kyrgyzstan.
Of course, this is an extremely simplified view, but the actual demarcation led to a very complex division of the territory, and later also to the formation of a number of small enclaves of other republics within some republics. In total, by the time of the collapse of the USSR, four Uzbek enclaves had formed inside the territory of Kyrgyzstan - Sokh, Shakhimardan, Chon-Gara (Chon-Kara), Tash-Tepa (Tash-Dobe) and two Tajik ones - Vorukh and Kairagach (Western Kalacha), and inside the territory of Uzbekistan one Kyrgyz (Barak) and one Tajik - Sarvak (Sarvaksoy)[i].
It should be noted that during the initial demarcation in the 1920s, they tried to avoid the formation of such enclaves, so that most of them appeared in the following decades for the convenience of national economic activity or during the consolidation of the economic boundaries of the formed collective farms and state farms. It is precisely such changes that underlie the dispute over the most problematic point on the current Tajik-Kyrgyz border - the Isfara River basin area from the aforementioned Vorukh enclave to the border with the main part of Tajikistan in the area of the villages of Khoja Alo (Khojai Alo), Chorku (Chorkuh), Surkh. The clashes of the end of April 2021 began there, so it is necessary to dwell on the history of this problem point in more detail.
At the initial stage of national-territorial demarcation, this entire part of the Isfara River basin was transferred to the Uzbek SSR and was included in the Khojent district, where the majority of the population were Tajiks. Kyrgyz sources indicate that back in 1925-1927, attempts were made by the Kyrgyz autonomy within the RSFSR to challenge the administrative border on this site, but they were unsuccessful, and representatives of the Kyrgyz side withdrew the claims [ii].
In 1929, the Tajik SSR was formed from the Tajik ASSR as part of the Uzbek SSR, to which the Khojent district was transferred, and in 1936 the Kyrgyz ASSR was separated from the RSFSR into another Soviet republic - the Kyrgyz SSR. They inherited the borders formed earlier, thereby a projection of the territory of the Tajik SSR was formed in the Isfara River basin, which jutted deep into the Kyrgyz SSR. This state of affairs is also recorded by Soviet maps of the 1930s and 40s[iii].
Disputes about how legally a part of the territory that was originally designated as part of the Tajik SSR turned out to be part of the Kyrgyz SSR in the following decades continue to this day. The Kyrgyz side insists that in this area, in addition to Tajik settlements, there were also Kyrgyz settlements, including Ak-Sai, Kapchygai, Kek-Tash. During the collectivization of the 1920s and 30s, collective farms were formed in the Kyrgyz villages, which were eventually assigned to the Batken district of Kyrgyzstan, and Tajik, respectively, to the Isfara district of Tajikistan. In addition, during the transition of the Kyrgyz to a sedentary lifestyle, these villages grew rapidly. As a result, in the following decades, the boundaries of the land use of collective farms gradually began to be formed as new administrative boundaries[iv].
The accumulated disputes between the republics were tried to be resolved with the help of the center in the second half of the 1950s during the work of joint, so-called Parity commissions. In the late 1950s, based on the results of their work, the administrative boundaries in some areas were clarified, and it was also proposed to transfer several thousand hectares of the territory of the Isfara district of the Tajik SSR to the Kyrgyz SSR in exchange for the joint use of the planned future Tortkul reservoir and the canal connecting it with the Isfara River. However, these proposed changes were duly approved only by the Kyrgyz side. The Supreme Soviet of the Tajik SSR did not approve this proposal (according to the USSR Constitution of 1936, the issues of defining borders were the responsibility of the Supreme Soviets of the Union Republics), but they did not oppose the construction of the reservoir there[v].
Thus, there was a situation in which the Kyrgyz SSR began to consider these lands its own, and the changed borders formed the basis of new Soviet maps that began to appear in the following decades and on which Vorukh no longer had a direct connection with the rest of the territory of the Tajik SSR [vi]. However, Tajikistan is confident that the transfer of land and new borders have no legal force, as they have not passed the required approval procedure. At the same time, in the disputed territory there is a water distribution point "Head" built on the Isfara River near the village of Khoja Alo, which takes water from Isfara into the canal and feeds it to the Tortkul reservoir - it is already located on the uncontested territory of Kyrgyzstan. As for the village of Ak-Sai, the Tajik side points out that it took shape as a Kyrgyz village only as a result of the conflict between local Tajiks and Kyrgyz in 1974, after which it was decided to transfer about 300 hectares of land to the Kyrgyz side in order to calm the situation[vii].
It should be noted that according to a number of sources, in addition to the 1974 conflict, there were isolated outbreaks of violence between Kyrgyz and Tajiks in those places earlier, starting in the 1930s [viii], but still life in the unified USSR allowed for decades to quickly stop conflicts and at least partially solve problems. Nevertheless, the disputes did not go away, and the actual boundaries of the land use of collective farms continued to not coincide with the administrative boundaries, and all this in conditions of increasing population with limited land and water resources.
A new aggravation occurred in the summer of 1989 against the background of the deepening crisis in the USSR, when interethnic disputes and conflicts began to break out in different parts of the country. The clashes then took place in the area of the villages of Khoja Alo (at that time October), Ak-Sai and Vorukh, and they were already much larger than those incidents that had happened during all the previous decades of Soviet power. Great bloodshed was then avoided only through the intervention of the Soviet military[ix].
The new Parity Commission, convened in 1989, tried to achieve a solution that would suit both Soviet republics - new maps were drawn up, but it was not possible to resolve all the contradictions and agree on administrative borders again. Soon, this issue faded into the background. Instability was rapidly growing throughout the USSR, including in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. In February 1990, bloody mass riots broke out in Dushanbe, the capital of the Tajik SSR, and in the summer of 1990, even bloodier mass riots and ethnic clashes between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks occurred in the Osh region of the Kyrgyz SSR.
Revival of disputes after independenceAt the end of 1991, the USSR ceased to exist, after which the internal political situation in the newly independent Tajikistan gradually began to get out of control of the Tajik authorities.
This led in 1992 to the beginning of a severe and bloody civil war there, the final end of which was put only by the signing in Moscow in 1997 of the "General Agreement on the Establishment of Peace and National Accord in Tajikistan". In Kyrgyzstan, after the collapse of the USSR, it was possible to keep the situation in the country in a peaceful course and prevent any major military conflicts, but, as in other former Soviet republics, life after the collapse of a large country was very difficult with many problems.
In such conditions, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan in the 1990s were not up to border disputes, especially since both republics became members of the military alliance - the CSTO in 1992, and the main real threat then was the danger from militants of terrorist groups. One can mention, for example, the penetration of the gangs of the "Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan" into the Batken region of Kyrgyzstan in 1999.
Therefore, the countries started to solve the border issue only in the next decade. In the early 2000s, a bilateral intergovernmental commission on the delimitation and demarcation of the border was established, and since 2002 the parties have begun substantive negotiations. Unfortunately, the problematic issues have not gone away, so the parties, having carried out the delimitation of more than 500 km of the almost 1000 km[x] of the Kyrgyz-Tajik border by the end of 2013, practically stopped. As of 2020-2021, the parties have agreed on the delimitation of only 519.9 km of the border, with the Kyrgyz side stating that the total length of the border is 972 km[xi], and the Tajik side insists on 987.6 km[xii].
As in Soviet times, the issue of borders between the Sughd region (the former Leninabad region, and before that the Khojent district) became a stumbling block Tajikistan and the Batken region of Kyrgyzstan in the Fergana Valley. The total number of disputed sites there is estimated at dozens [xiii]. In Dushanbe, it was believed that the delimitation and demarcation of the border should be based on maps and documents approved during the national-territorial demarcation in the 1920s and 30s, considering them the only legitimate ones, and in Bishkek, that maps and documents developed in the second half of the 1950s - early 1960s or since taking into account the existing actual residence and use [xiv].
Meanwhile, after the collapse of the USSR, the transformation of the former invisible administrative borders between the Soviet republics into full-fledged state borders with border posts, etc., the continuing increase in population, unemployment, degradation of hydraulic structures and other problems led to an aggravation of the conflict situation on the ground. Population in only one Tajik rural community (jamoat) The number of thieves as of January 2015 exceeded 30.5 thousand people[xv]. And in total, according to the Eurasian Portal on River Basin Management, about 500 thousand people now live in the Isfara River basin, of which the vast majority (84.1%) are in the Tajik part. The population density in the Tajik part is 251.6 people per square km, and in the Kyrgyz part - 16.6 people per square km, since most of the Kyrgyz part falls on the mountains. At the same time, pumping stations and water pipelines are worn out, and irrigation and drainage networks can no longer meet the requirements of consumers[xvi].
It is not surprising that since the 2000s there has been a gradual increase in conflicts on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border, and their frequency has increased on various occasions: disputes over access and distribution of water and land resources, problems with crossing borders and up to conflicts over the extraction and export of river gravel and sand. Only in 2011-2013 . according to some sources, the number of various border incidents, including fights, stoning, arson, hostage-taking, etc., was already 63 cases[xvii].
But still, despite the quantitative increase in conflict incidents, the vast majority of these were conflicts between civilians using improvised tools and hunting weapons available to the population. Sometimes there were conflict situations between civilians and representatives of border and law enforcement agencies, but the Kyrgyz and Tajik authorities tried for a long time to prevent clashes between representatives of law enforcement agencies. The situation began to seriously change for the worse since the mid-2010s, and the main point of tension was again the disputed section of the border in the Isfara River basin between the Isfara district of the Sughd region of Tajikistan and the Batken district of the Batken region of Kyrgyzstan.
It is important to note that not only the road connecting the Tajik district center of Isfara with Vorukh, but also the Kyrgyz Osh- Batken - Isfana road (not to be confused with the Tajik Isfara), connecting the main part of the republic with its extreme southwestern Leilek district, passes through Tajik territory in places[xviii].
The Kyrgyz authorities started building bypass roads in the area, but as a result, one of these roads near the villages of Ak-Sai and Vorukh caused the first armed clash between representatives of Tajik and Kyrgyz law enforcement agencies in January 2014, as its route passed through the disputed territory. The conflict between the border guards ended in a shootout in which three Kyrgyz and five Tajik border guards were wounded. Statements and protest notes followed from Dushanbe and Bishkek with mutual accusations that it was the opposing side that first used firearms[xix].
Despite diplomatic efforts, in the following years the security situation in the disputed sections of the border continued to deteriorate, and the shootout between border guards was not an isolated exceptional case, but only the first of a number of similar incidents. Moreover, shootings began to occur in other disputed areas, and in addition to the wounded, more and more dead began to appear. So, in September 2019, the conflict arose in the area of the border section of the Kulundinsky rural district (aylny aimak) of the Leilek district of the Batken region of Kyrgyzstan and the rural community of Ovchi-Kalacha of the Bobojon-Gafurov district of the Sughd region of Tajikistan. During the exchange of fire, one Kyrgyz and three Tajik border guards were killed, about two dozen more people from both sides were injured, among them were both military personnel and civilians[xx].
In 2020, similar incidents continued, the parties also exchanged protest notes[xxi], conducted proceedings [xxii], etc., but the situation did not improve. In the spring of 2021, the head of the Kyrgyz State Committee for National Security (GKNB) Kamchybek Tashiyev said that after the regular negotiations on the delimitation and demarcation of the border held in March, the parties reached agreement on most points, but the area of the Vorukh enclave remains a stumbling block. In this regard, Kyrgyzstan offered Tajikistan to give Vorukh in exchange for an equal-sized piece of territory in the Batken region or fix the size of the enclave, as well as use the road to connect with the main territory of Tajikistan only for travel [xxiii].
The problem is that Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have different ideas about the borders in this area, which have not been agreed for many years. The exchange option looks almost incredible, since the Vorukh enclave, despite all the problems and small size, remains a densely populated territory with fertile, well-irrigated land. Therefore, any option of its transfer will look extremely unprofitable not only in the eyes of more than 30 thousand Tajik citizens who live in Vorukh itself, but also for the rest of the country's population. Moreover, Kyrgyzstan can hardly offer an equivalent exchange in principle, since inhabited fertile lands are a shortage in the entire Fergana Valley and its surroundings. It is not surprising that the actual response was the visit of the President of Tajikistan Emomali Rahmon to Vorukh in April 2021, during which he stated: "During the entire period of negotiations, the issue of replacing Vorukh with any other territory has not been and cannot be"[xxiv].
Armed clashes on April 28 - May 1, 2021 and their consequences The deadlock in the negotiations led to another border incident at the end of April, which escalated into the largest border clashes between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
The beginning of this conflict was the issue of monitoring the distribution of water at the Head water distribution point on the Isfara River, which is located south of the Tajik village of Khoja Alo, southwest of the Kyrgyz village of Kek-Tash and north of the Kyrgyz village of Ak-Sai and the Tajik enclave of Voruha. As noted above, each party considers it to be located on its own territory. The first clash in April of this year between civilians occurred on April 17, but the issue was settled peacefully [xxv].
