Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have completed the procedures for clarifying the line of the state border, President of Kyrgyzstan Sadyr Zhaparov said on Thursday in Bishkek.
"Yesterday, we finally resolved the border issue with neighboring Uzbekistan," he said. He did not specify what document with Tashkent he was referring to.
The president also spoke about the protests against transferring the Kempir-Abad (Andijan) reservoir to the Uzbek side as part of the settlement of border disputes this autumn. " There were groups that tried to realize their personal interests in this issue, using Kempir-Abad as a pretext. However, their ultimate goal was not realized, because people fully understood how the problem was solved. For almost 70 years Kempir-Abad has been run by neighboring Uzbekistan, and now we will do it together," he said.
As Zhaparov explained, the agreement with Uzbekistan includes a provision on the need to supply water to Kyrgyz villages. "But at the moment there is no such need. If at some point in the future there will be a need for water, we will solve the issue of water supply. If we did not introduce and solve such a provision, then in the future there could be a conflict between the two peoples," he explained.
The border between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan is more than 1,300km long. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, dozens of disputed sections developed along its line. For almost 30 years, Bishkek and Tashkent could not agree on border demarcation and delimitation. The parties managed to intensify the process in the autumn of 2017; at the beginning of 2022, the last 230 km, where about 50 disputed sections were located, remained to be agreed. In the fall, the parliaments of the two states ratified agreements on the settlement of border issues.
According to Kamchybek Tashiyev, head of Kyrgyzstan's State Committee for National Security, agreements on the remaining disputed sections determine that the Kyrgyz side has about 19,000 hectares of disputed territory, while Uzbekistan has 4,500 hectares, including the Kempir-Abad (Andijan) reservoir built in 1983.
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Photo: Federation Council
Based on materials from TASS