A border dispute that had resulted in the deaths of over 200 people in recent years now appears to be at an end. On February 21, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan signed an agreement finalizing the delimitation of a 970 kilometer stretch of borderland, long a source of tension between the two countries.

The two sides signed the final protocol delineating the borders, along with two additional agreements on highway construction and ensuring access to water resources and energy facilities. 

Kyrgyz Republic President Sadyr Japarov and his Tajikistani counterpart, Emomali Rahmon, will still have to sign the treaty after the agreement’s approval by their respective national parliaments.  The details of the agreement remain unclear because the documents have not yet been made public.

Sources of Conflict

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, disputed borders have been a point of contention throughout Central Asia. The Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan conflict has been a prime example, with tensions driven by competing land claims and local politicians, as well as by competition for water resources and arable land.  In fact, the border conflict dates back decades, with clashes among  border communities being a regular occurrence. However, conflict flare-ups were usually short-lived, between local communities, and did not typically involve military-grade weapons. 

The dispute ratcheted up severely in April 2021, when a series of tit-for-tat exchanges escalated to open conflict between Kyrgyzstan’s and Tajikistan’s forces.  A more deadly round of fighting occurred in September 2022.  The two outbreaks of fighting resulted in the deaths of over 200 military personnel and civilians, the evacuation of at least 156,000 local residents (136,000 within Kyrgyzstan and 20,000 in Tajikistan), and the destruction of civilian homes and villages.  

These two most recent episodes of fighting produced a short-lived arms race between the two neighboring countries, with the 2022 clashes featuring Kyrgyzstan’s early use of the now widely known Bayraktar TB2 drone.  Political elites, such as Kyrgyzstan’s Chairman of the State Committee for National Security, Kamchybek Tashiev, became household names during the conflict, making dramatic nationalist statements in the national press. 

Embassy of Republic of Tajikistan to Malaysia, Republic of Indonesia, and Kingdom of Thailand

A road to sustainable peace?

Both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan host Russian military bases and are members of the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO). Moscow’s reluctance to intervene during the border skirmishes over the past years might have also pushed Bishkek and Dushanbe to resolve the matter bilaterally.

October 2023 saw what appeared to be a break-through in relations between Dushanbe and Bishkek, with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan signing a surprise joint protocol that provided “the basis to resolve all border issues.”  

The rising scale of violence likely prompted a reassessment on the part of Bishkek and Dushanbe.  Additionally, Kyrgyzstan’s President Japarov had promised constituents his government would resolve border issues, making further violence a political risk for him.  A series of regional pressure points, such as Uzbekistan resolving its own border disputes and pressure from neighboring states over new opportunities for trade throughout Central Asia, also likely brought new incentives for Bishkek’s and Dushanbe’s officials to resolve the issue. By December 2023, the two sides had made remarkable progress by agreeing to grant mutual open access to each other's infrastructure facilities across their common border. 

While it is uncertain whether the agreement will ensure a sustainable peace between the two countries, the test of this agreement is whether it can withstand potential domestic isapproval and how the two sides implement its provisions. The escalating clashes in 2021 and 2022 demonstrated to the two nations’ governments that renewed conflict could become more deadly.

The implementation of the new agreement, however, might remain a challenge. Local residents could prove resistant after experiencing years of conflict and ethnic animosity, at times stoked by political elites. 

“There’s local officials who have really been pushing it [ethnic animus],” Central Asia journalist and analyst Bruce Pannier stated when reached for comment. “I talked to a mayor [in Kyrgyzstan]... She was telling the people in her village to make sure if the Tajiks crossed over to throw rocks at them. And it's the same on the other side.” 

“When they [professional border technicians] start to go down there and try to demarcate the border, then we’ll see if everyone is going to do it.” Pannier cautioned. “The Devil will be in the details.”