TAJIKISTAN AND KYRGYZSTAN AGREE TO CEASE FIRE AFTER BORDER CLASHES

Thu 29 April 2021:

Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan agreed to cease fire and withdraw military forces to the places of their former deployment. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Kyrgyzstan reported.

In connection with the April 28-29 border incident on the Kyrgyz-Tajik section of the state border, the Foreign Affairs Minister of Kyrgyzstan Ruslan Kazakbaev held talks with the Foreign Affairs Minister of Tajikistan Sirojiddin Mukhriddin and other representatives, during which further joint actions of the parties aimed at resolving the situation in the borderlands of the two countries were discussed.

The official stressed the importance of building confidence between the two states, especially in the border area, taking measures to ensure security and stability in the border areas, and suppressing any actions aimed at increasing tensions among the local population.

At least one person has died and 18 others were wounded after clashes erupted between the military forces of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan at a disputed section of the central Asian nations’ border.

According to media accounts from Kyrgyzstan, the trouble may have started around 11 a.m. on April 28, when Tajik laborers arrived at the banks of a cross-border river and began removing rubble. Later, Tajiks installed a close-circuit surveillance camera on a utility pole in a Kyrgyz village, precipitating an intervention from Kyrgyz local officials and border personnel, according to the same accounts.

The fighting followed a reported conflict over water infrastructure at the frontier between the two countries, which have had a series of border disputes since gaining independence when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

More than a third of the border is disputed, with the area surrounding the de-facto Tajik exclave of Vorukh, where Thursday’s conflict erupted, a regular clash point over territory and access to water.

The number of Kyrgyz people who sustained injuries after a shootout at the country’s border with Tajikistan increased to 31, the Health Ministry said on Thursday, adding that one person died.

Mayor Of Tajikistan’s Isfara Injured

The mayor of the Tajik city of Isfara, Bahovaddin Bahodurzoda, was wounded in a shoulder in an armed confrontation at the country’s border with Kyrgyzstan, his office told Sputnik on Thursday.

“Isfara’s mayor, Bahovaddin Bahodurzoda, sustained a gunshot wound in a shoulder,” the office said, noting that the mayor’s condition is stable.

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