Kyrgyz-Uzbek Border Row Reflects Political Tensions

An angry spat between Uzbek and Kyrgyz police is only going to make life even tougher for people on either side of the border, NBCentralAsia analysts say.



On June 10, Kyrgyzstan’s foreign ministry sent the Uzbek authorities a diplomatic note asking them to explain the arrest of two Kyrgyz policemen.



The men, from the Alabuka district of Jalalabad region, were detained close to the border on June 4, while passing through the Uzbek region of Namangan in order to get from one part of Kyrgyzstan to another.



Uzbek state media claimed the policemen were arrested for a traffic violation and found to be intoxicated. In a June 5 statement, the men’s employer, the Kyrgyz interior ministry, said this story was a complete invention and that both men were sober.



The Kyrgyz authorities believe the two were arrested as a deliberate act of retribution for an earlier incident on June 2 involving two Uzbek border guards on Kyrgyz territory. Bishkek says the two were disarmed while on a mission to seize and extract a local resident.



Once again, the Uzbek state media told a different story, claiming that a group of Kyrgyz nationals crossed into Uzbek territory, attacked a unit of frontier guards, beat them up and stole their weapons.



Incidents of this kind have occurred sporadically over the years, with the Uzbek and Kyrgyz authorities trading mutual recriminations about who was to blame. As recently as the end of May, Uzbek media carried a wave of reports accusing Kyrgyz police of beating up Uzbek citizens and extorting money from them.



Observers say such local confrontations are a reflection of the strained political relationship between the two neighbouring states.



More than 12 million people live along the 1,000-kilometre border between the two countries, which also features a number of small territorial enclaves on one side or the other. There is a lot of cross-border traffic as people move to and fro visiting relatives or trading in goods.



After lengthy negotiations, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan signed an agreement last year allowing their citizens to travel without a visa for a period of up to 60 days.



However, observers say it remains difficult to cross over, as border guards on both sides make up the rules as they go along. Corruption is rife, and travellers often face a choice between paying a bribe to pass freely, and getting into serious trouble if they refuse.



At the end of May, an IWPR contributor was assaulted by Kyrgyz frontier guards while crossing through the Dostuk checkpoint to get from Osh to the Uzbek city of Andijan.



Following an argument about his passport, he said, “They threw me down to the ground and started kicking me in the stomach.”



When the journalist sought assistance from Uzbek border guards, an officer told him, “It isn’t just you that was beaten up – it happens every day. You just have to pay more.”



Orozbek Moldaliev, director of the Politics, Religion, and Security Centre based in Bishek says the border guards breach every law and bilateral agreement, and foster corruption, which they live off.



“In such circumstances, it is likely that the conflict between the security forces of the two countries will only intensify,” he said. “And it’s the local residents who will suffer.”



Tashpulat Yuldashev, a political analyst in Tashkent, argues that both sides are deliberately aggravating the situation. He believes recent tensions stem from a change of policy in Kyrgyzstan, where the police are no longer as willing as they were until recently to allow Uzbekistan’s security services to conduct overt operations on Kyrgyz territory and arrest Uzbek nationals there.



Yuldashev notes that Kyrgyzstan, by far the weaker of the two states, has recently become more assertive. Grain shortages exacerbated by a shortage of rainfall place the Kyrgyz at something of an advantage. Their large water reserves feed Uzbekistan’s rivers and provide them with some political leverage for the first time since both countries became independent in 1991.



“Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have moved into a new phase in their relationship, with the Kyrgyz displaying a degree of independence and insubordination,” said Yuldashev. “Tashkent doesn’t like that, as it’s used to dictating terms to Kyrgyzstan.”



On June 11, the Kyrgyz ministry of industry, energy and fuel announced that Uzbekistan had refused to sign up to a four-nation accord that would also include Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan, on the use of water and energy resources. The ministry said Kyrgyz electricity exports to Uzbekistan – and the release of extra water into the Naryn river, which feeds the major Syr Darya waterway – were now conditional on Tashkent signing the agreement.



(NBCA is an IWPR-funded project to create a multilingual news analysis and comment service for Central Asia, drawing on the expertise of a broad range of political observers across the region. The project ran from August 2006 to September 2007, covering all five regional states. With new funding, the service is resuming, covering only Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan for the moment.)