Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan resolve final Central Asian border dispute

Central Asian neighbours Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan on Wednesday announced a border demarcation deal on the last contested frontier in the region, potentially ending decades of territorial disputes.

Since the fall of the Soviet Union, the border between the impoverished countries has seen sporadic deadly clashes, with the neighbours fighting over access to water and resources in the remote region.

The 970-kilometre (600 mile) border, part of which was not demarcated, is among the most mountainous in the world.

The deal, reached by Bishkek's and Dushanbe's powerful secret service chiefs, comes almost two years after an intense and bloody border conflict killed around 100 people in September 2022.

The governments of both countries said they had "reached an agreement and fully completed the drawing of the remaining sections of the Kyrgyz-Tajik state border."

They published images of Kyrgyz security chief Kamchybek Tashiev shaking hands with his Tajik counterpart Saimumin Yatimov.

The delegations met in the Kyrgyz city of Batken, south of the Tajik border.

The governments ordered their officials to proceed with demarcation documents and said the meeting "took place in an atmosphere of friendship and mutual understanding".

The border dispute stemmed from Soviet times, when a simple administrative demarcation was drawn between the mountainous neighbours -- something that led to years of dispute and conflict after the fall of the USSR in 1991.

 Decades-long dispute  

The fighting had focused over access to water, a crucial resource in a vast region particularly vulnerable to climate change and where drinking water is scarce.

The deal comes with a general warming of relations between the five ex-Soviet Central Asian countries.

Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov and his Tajik counterpart Emomali Rakhmon had discussed border issues in a rare meeting at a UN summit last year, sparking optimism that a deal was possible.

Soon afterwards, the countries had pledged to work towards the demarcation of the border.

Autumn 2022 saw the worst fighting over the border since the fall of the Soviet Union, with thousands fleeing their homes in frontier villages.

That eruption of violence came as Russia, Central Asia's traditional powerbroker, was bogged down with its invasion of Ukraine.

Both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are members of the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation and in 2022 Kyrgyzstan had asked Russian leader Vladimir Putin to mediate.

Bishkek said negotiations were "difficult" because the two sides did not have access to original Soviet-era maps that could throw clarity on where the disputed border should be.

"Russia is the legal successor of the Soviet Union, there are archive documents and maps in Moscow," Kyrgyz Security Council Secretary Marat Imankulov said at the time.

But there was no sign that Moscow, still tied up in Ukraine, had played a role in the new deal.

China, Turkey and the European Union are competing for influence in the region, sensing an opening as Russia fights in Ukraine.

For years border clashes mostly remained local affairs, but large-scale violence in both 2021 and 2022 erupted into wider conflicts, causing major destruction.