Kyrgyz-Tajik automotive cargo traffic blocked after armed clash - official
DUSHANBE. Jan 23 (Interfax) - Kyrgyzstan has "unilaterally" closed all the checkpoints on its border with Tajikistan after an armed clash between Kyrgyz and Tajik border guards on January 11, and this has resulted in massive congestions of trucks on both sides of the frontier carrying cargo each way, a top Tajik customs official said on Thursday.
Up to 40 heavy trucks are stranded at each of the five checkpoints on the 970-kilometer border, which are closed to human and cargo traffic in both directions, Tajik first deputy customs chief Negmatdzhon Rakhmatov told a news conference.
Two Tajik and five Kyrgyz border guards were wounded in the January 11 gun clash. Both countries blame the conflict on each other.
"So far the border is closed, but there is hope that soon all the intergovernmental problems will be solved, and cargo traffic will resume, including the traffic of transit cargo for Afghanistan," Rakhmatov said.
Deputy Prime Minister Tokon Mamytov of Kyrgyzstan and Murodali Alimardon of Tajikistan are expected to meet on Friday or Saturday to ponder ways of settling the border conflict, but there has been no official confirmation that such a meeting is planned.
Air traffic between the two former Soviet republics remains undisrupted.