While the world has been watching talks aimed at ending Russia’s three-year full-scale invasion of Ukraine, two Central Asian countries have been quietly working to consign a long and sometimes bloody border dispute to the past.
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan’s agreement over their roughly 1,000-kilometer frontier seems to deserve the “historic” billing given to it by both countries' presidents -- and not just because the disagreement dates back to early Soviet times, when the two countries were ultimately Moscow-controlled entities.
Instead, the scale of the achievement lies in the fact that just under half of the frontier was disputed as recently as three years ago, with the worst clashes between the two countries happening in 2021 and 2022, leaving scores dead on both sides and a lasting mark on the national psyches.
Weeks after the second conflict, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon and his Kyrgyz counterpart, Sadyr Japarov, did not even shake hands at a meeting mediated by Russian President Vladimir Putin, who seemed barely interested.
But on March 12, there was both a long handshake and three hugs between the two men after Rahmon touched down in Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital, where he was greeted by traditional dancers and musicians, as well as a billboard bearing his image and welcoming “his excellency” in the warmest terms.
The two leaders signed the agreement the following day, as two border crossings connecting the countries were reopened for the first time in nearly four years.
With ratification expected to be a formality in both parliaments, despite signs of unease in Kyrgyzstan, it is now a question of how life changes on the ground for long-suffering communities in a water-scarce, densely populated stretch of the region.
Bridging The Gaps
Prior to 2021, incidents at the border were mostly low-level conflicts. They occasionally blew up between the Kyrgyz and Tajik communities over perceived trespassing and access to water resources, drawing the young border guards of the two countries into hostile engagements.
But incidents before 2021 were mere shoot-outs.
The use of heavy artillery and then foreign-made drones -- Kyrgyzstan boasted of its acquisition of the Turkish-made Bayraktar TB2, for instance -- in the 2021 and 2022 conflicts raised both the stakes of the dispute and its death toll.
In a review of the four-day conflict in 2022 that saw over 100,000 people displaced in Kyrgyzstan alone, the New York-based Human Rights Watch cited “serious violations of the laws of war by both sides.”
Incidents highlighted in the report included attacks on civilian vehicles and ambulances, the “indiscriminate” use of explosives, extrajudicial killings by military forces, and arson attacks on homes and civilian infrastructure, culminating in dozens of civilian deaths.
The growing devastation, allied with the prospect of a mini-arms race with no decisive victory in sight for either party, might have given added impetus to talks between the region’s two poorest countries.
But that does not make them easy, especially given the hazy nature of frontiers between republics that the Kremlin never intended to become independent.
So far, the information on the agreement has come from Kyrgyzstan, where officials tend to say more.
In a detailed rundown in parliament last month, Kyrgyz national-security chief Kamchybek Tashiev said that talks building up to the February 21 protocol that he signed with opposite number Saimuddin Yatimov had been “very difficult.”
The amount of pasture land to allocate to Tajikistan in the surroundings of the Vorukh -- a chunk of Tajikistan de facto surrounded by Kyrgyz territory -- had been one sticking point, he said.
Another was the status of a strategic bridge just 20 meters in length, which allows for unimpeded movement between two districts in Kyrgyzstan’s southwestern region of Batken.
That took fully six months to resolve in Kyrgyzstan’s favor, Tashiev revealed.
A Village Called 'Friendship’
Kyrgyzstan was also able to persuade Tajikistan not to use maps from the 1920s -- when Stalinist border-drawing in Central Asia was at its peak -- as a negotiating position, Tashiev said.
But Bishkek has made some pretty big concessions at the same time.
The village of Dostuk, translating as "friendship" is a case in point.
Under the agreement, this Kyrgyz village has been completely transferred to the Tajik side.
In the Kyrgyz parliament, lawmaker Sultanbay Aizhigitov said the transfer would bring Tajikistan a step closer to its long-held goal of joining troublesome Vorukh -- a territory which Tajik authorities never considered to be an "exclave" -- with Tajikistan proper.
“If it was only the road that was neutral, with the land remaining ours, that would be one thing,” said Aizhigitov, homing in on another concession that he said had benefited Vorukh and its population of some 40,000 people.
“But [under the agreement] the road will be neutral and the land will be neutral. And neutral land can be taken by whoever is stronger,” he warned.
Aizhigitov was subsequently expelled from his pro-government party, Yiman Nuru, whose leader Dinara Ashimova said his comments were not her party’s line.
President Japarov accused Aizhigitov of demagoguery in remarks to state media.
But what of the roughly 70 households that lived in Dostuk?
In the 2021 conflict, about a dozen houses in the village were destroyed before being rebuilt.
In 2022, the village was hit even worse.
Both the houses and vital social infrastructure, however, were rebuilt again.
Talks between residents and Batken governor Aibek Shamenov proved to be tense, especially after Shamenov responded irately to a request for more land per household in Buzhum, the village where Dostuk residents are getting relocated to.
Japarov has since reprimanded the governor, and Shamenov has apologized, pledging that Dostuk residents will get extra land.
Sharing Water, Boosting Trade
Ensuring that any dissatisfaction over the agreement is contained will be a key priority of the Kyrgyz government ahead of ratification.
But it has had some practice on this front.
In 2022, opposition to a theoretically less contentious border deal with Uzbekistan marked the first real challenge to Japarov’s regime, which took a decidedly authoritarian turn thereafter.
Dozens were arrested in that crackdown, demonstrating a new “red line” for political opposition.
In Tajikistan, a challenge to the ruling Rahmon family over something like a border agreement seems almost impossible. Over the last decade, political opposition there has been completely wiped out.
But if deepening authoritarianism is one trend in Central Asia, an increasing emphasis on cooperation between the region’s countries is a more positive one, generally occurring without any outside assistance.
Along with “neutral roads” in no-man’s-land, the Kyrgyz-Tajik border agreement has created a framework for sharing water from the Golovnoi intake facility that draws water from a river known as Ak-Suu by Kyrgyzstan and Isfara by Tajikistan.
Tajiks and Kyrgyz already share water from the sluice, but it was another site of contention, most notably during the three-day border war of 2021. Under the new agreement, each side will have a gate each at the intake and split the third one.
How these and other shared infrastructure are managed in practice remains to be seen.
But the intent is there, and the two countries’ transition from foes to friends is likely to be further cemented at an unprecedented trilateral summit with Uzbekistan in the Tajik city of Khujand on March 31.
For both countries, Uzbekistan was once a nightmare neighbor.
That has completely changed ever since President Shavkat Mirziyoev replaced the late Islam Karimov as leader of the region’s most populous country, viewing the neighborhood through the prism of opportunities, rather than threats, and moving quickly to end his own country’s border disputes.
Calling the summit an “important step in strengthening regional cooperation” at a meeting of the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, Kyrgyz Deputy Prime Minister Edil Baisalov paid tribute to a “historic triumph of diplomatic and political will” on the part of his country and Tajikistan.
For once, in regional diplomatic speak, that doesn't seem like an exaggeration.
