(Reuters) – Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan announced a ceasefire on Friday after a series of deadly border clashes threatened to escalate into open war between the two Central Asian republics.
The two countries have passed responsibility for this resumption of fighting in a disputed area which has left at least three dead and dozens injured in three days.
The truce was announced by Kyrgyz border guards to come into effect at 4:00 p.m. local time (10:00 GMT). It was later confirmed by Tajikistan.
Moscow, an ally of the two states, which host Russian military bases, had called for this cessation of hostilities.
According to Kyrgyzstan, the forces of Tajikistan have used tanks, armored vehicles and mortars to penetrate in recent days in at least one Kyrgyz village and bombard the airport of the city of Batken, in the south of the country.
Tajikistan, for its part, accused Kyrgyz forces of having bombarded one of its outposts and seven villages using heavy weapons.
One civilian was killed and three others were injured, authorities in the Tajik town of Isfara said. Two Tajik border guards were also killed.
Kyrgyzstan announced for its part a balance sheet of 31 people injured during the night from Thursday to Friday in the province of Batken, which adjoins the Tajik region of Sughd.
An open conflict had already almost broken out last year in this disputed area, plagued by ethnic tensions, where several Kyrgyz enclaves are located in Tajik territory.
Temour Oumarov, a researcher at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, explains that the isolated villages at the heart of the dispute are of little economic importance but are exaggeratedly exploited for political ends by the governments of the two countries, whose discourse is “populist and nationalist”. made impossible the prospect of a compromise via an exchange of territories.
Alexander Kniazev, another specialist in Central Asia, also judges that neither Kyrgyz President Sadir Djaparov nor his Tajik counterpart Emomali Rakhmon have expressed their desire to settle this conflict peacefully.
According to him, only a third party could prevent future conflicts by establishing a demilitarized zone in the region.
(Report Olga Dzyubenko, with Nazarali Pirnazarov in Dushanbe, French version Camille Raynaud and Jean-Stéphane Brosse)