CSTO cannot intervene in Kyrgyz-Tajik border conflicts
TOKMAK. July 29 (Interfax) - The secretary general of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, Nikolai Bordyuzha, believes that the CSTO is not authorized to intervene in border conflicts that occasionally erupt between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, but can help the two countries resolve them.
"The events that are taking place near the Tajik enclave of Vorukh on the border between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan today belong exclusively to relations between these two countries. A third party has no right to interfere in them," Bordyuzha told Interfax on Tuesday.
"But the CSTO can help Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and create conditions that will allow the sides to find a compromise," he said.
As for measures to settle border disputes and conflicts between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, "it is imperative for the heads of these two countries at the highest level to display goodwill regarding the need to reach common ground and find a way out of this situation," Bordyuzha said.
Kyrgyz Armed Forces General Staff Chief Asylbek Alymkozhoyev, for his part, said that "the Kyrgyz and the Tajiks have been living side-by-side for millennia, but unresolved problems between entities are triggering conflict-prone situations today."
"The most important thing is that we have intergovernmental commissions [for the delimitation and demarcation of the state border] that are working vigorously to find a way out of this situation, and they should sort out all issues," Alymkozhoyev said.
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan share a 970-kilometer-long border, which is largely unmarked, a circumstance behind frequent conflicts between the two countries. Several Kyrgyz and Tajik servicemen were injured when the sides exchanged fire near the Tajik enclave of Vorukh on July 10.