Kyrgyzstan ratifies border agreement with Uzbekistan
BISHKEK. Nov 29 (Interfax) - Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov has signed into law a bill which ratifies the country's agreement over the joint border with Uzbekistan, his press service said on Tuesday.
"Japarov signed the law 'On the ratification of the agreement between the Kyrgyz Republic and the Republic of Uzbekistan over separate sections of the Kyrgyz-Uzbek State border,' signed in the city of Bishkek on November 3," a statement said.
The president also signed a law ratifying an intergovernmental agreement on the joint management of water resources of the Kempir-Abad (Andijan) reservoir, the service said. Under this law, the resources will be managed by a joint Kyrgyz-Uzbek commission.
The bill concerning the agreement, which was signed by the two countries' foreign ministers on November 3 and covers 302.29-kilometer stretches, passed all three readings in the parliament on November 17.
In addition, the parliament voted to ratify an intergovernmental agreement with Uzbekistan over the joint management of the water resources of the Kempir-Abad (Andijan) reservoir.
Under that agreement, Uzbekistan receives 4,485 hectares of land under the water, Kyrgyzstan gets 19,699 hectares.
Earlier, the chairman of the Kyrgyz State Committee for National Security, Kamchibek Tashiyev, said that the reservoir would be jointly managed by the two countries.
In an interview with the Kabar news agency on October 9, President Japarov said that the issue over disputable sections with Uzbekistan had been solved in Kyrgyz favor.
In 2017, the two republics signed an agreement over the delimitation of 85% of their 1,378-kilometer joint border. The remaining 15% have since been the scene of occasional conflict between local residents.
On March 25, 2021, Uzbek and Kyrgyz government delegations met in Tashkent and signed a protocol which settled all the issues over the disputed border sections, including by swapping territories.
The lower chamber of the Uzbek parliament already had approved the ratification of both the agreements.