Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan settle border dispute that sparked deadly clashes

22/2/2025 6:15

Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, two ex-Soviet Central Asian states, said on Friday that they had resolved a decades-old border dispute that had sparked clashes

between different ethnic groups that had killed over a hundred people.



Top security officials from both countries signed an agreement setting down the state borders over more than 970 km (600 miles) after resolving disputes over certain sections. The document must now be signed by the countries' presidents.



Two days of skirmishes in border regions killed more than 100 people in September 2022 and prompted the evacuation of about 140,000 residents. Similar clashes in April 2021 killed about 20 people and injured more than 200.



"The border demarcation between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan is taking place after two quite bloody conflicts and this complicates the problem," Temur Umarov, a Central Asian expert at the Berlin Carnegie centre, told Reuters.



"This is a sensitive political issue. If the documents

agreed on are published, they will become of considerable public

interest and groups in both countries could well oppose the

newly-agreed borders."