Witnesses confirm Kyrgyz border guards' fault in deadly incident near Uzbek border - prosecutor
TASHKENT. July 27 (Interfax) - An investigation is under way in Uzbekistan into an armed clash in which two Kyrgyz military servicemen shot and killed two Uzbek border guards several days ago.
"Muzaffar Dadaboyev, an employee of Musakhan Baltabayev's farm, and Abdullo Ubaidullayev, the head of another farm, witnessed this bloody incident. Their testimony confirms the Kyrgyz border guards' guilt," the Namangan region military prosecutor's office, which is investigating the incident, told Interfax on Saturday.
Ahmajon Khaidarov, the head of a local land cadastre service department, and Abdulakhad Abdullayev, a division chief at the Namangan regional cadastre service, confirmed that the place where the incident happened undeniably belongs to Uzbekistan.
An investigation has determined that the Kyrgyz border guards were more than 300 meters into Uzbek territory when they shot the Uzbek servicemen, a prosecution official said.
"Kyrgyz geodesists, who visited the scene of the crime, also acknowledged that illegal intrusion into [Uzbek] territory took place. Chief of the Kyrgyz Border Service's regional department for the Osh and Jalal-Abad regions Col. Abdukarim Alimbayev had nothing to do but admit his men's fault and offer condolences to the casualties' families and beloved ones," he said.
These facts fully disprove Kyrgyzstan's account of the incident, the official said. "The neighboring side's desire to look more or less decently in the international community's eyes is understandable, but obvious facts cannot be ignored. Farfetched claims are not an argument in a discussion, and the uncontrolled use of firearms by the servicemen, which led to human deaths, only causes more tension in relations between the two countries, which are already quite complicated," he said.
The investigation into the incident is continuing.
Kyrgyz and Uzbek border units exchanged fire near the village of Zhetizagara in the Jalal-Abad region of Kyrgyzstan on July 23. One Uzbek serviceman was killed on the spot and another was severely injured and died later in the hospital.
The Kyrgyz Border Service claimed the Uzbek border guards violated the border and used weapons first. Uzbekistan is saying the opposite.
The Kyrgyz-Uzbek border is about 1,375-kilometer long, with about one third of it not properly demarcated.
