Kyrgyzstan has yet to delimit border with Uzbekistan, Tajikistan
BISHKEK. July 21 (Interfax) - Delimitation and demarcation of Kyrgyzstan's southern borders with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan may take long, Kyrgyz Vice-Premier for Security Issues Abdyrakhman Mamataliev said, adding that a common solution was necessary.
"Probably, no one can tell precisely when the state border delimitation and demarcation may come to an end because this is a responsibility of more than one side; both sides need to reach consensus," Mamataliev told Interfax.
The Kyrgyz president and prime minister "speak in favor and give instructions concerning rapid delimitation which must provide the interests of our state and people," he said.
As of now, experts have delimited 1,007 kilometers of the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border, whose total length is 1,378 kilometers. "Yet for some reason Uzbekistan, which had urged the soonest drafting of the state border agreement, proposed last year to apply the agreement only to 701 kilometers of the border," the vice-premier said.
Kyrgyzstan is waiting for expert groups to finish their deliberations and wants to hear explanations of Uzbekistan, he pointed out.
"We have delimited 54% of the border with Tajikistan and still have to delimit 46% but we are unable to choose which document shall be the legal basis [of this process]," Mamataliev said.
The Kyrgyz-Tajik border is 970 kilometers long.
The border delimitation commission cochairmen, Mamataliev and Tajik Deputy Prime Minister Murodali Alimardon, have agreed to use the data from expert groups for the elaboration of "certain unusual ways in the state border delimitation and to reach an accord in the near future."
Mamataliev did not rule out the sides might discuss a swap of lands on terms supported by local residents in the areas were Kyrgyz and Tajik lands are arranged in a staggered order.
In turn, the Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry said the sides should probably advance the border delimitation and demarcation processes on the basis of the normative legal acts (the Almaty Declaration) signed in the breakup of the former Soviet Union and the formation of the CIS. The documents recognized and pledged respect for each other's territorial integrity and the inviolability of their borders.
