Settling the border dispute could spur cooperation, connectivity

After an initial breakthrough deal reached in the Kyrgyz border town of Batken in December last year, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan signed an agreement on February 21 that settles a decades-long border dispute.

The document will now be subject to domestic ratification in both countries, and observers are hopeful that these last steps will be taken without further hiccups.

Tensions around the contested border area had spiraled into violence in 2021 and 2022. Since the coming to power of President Sadyr Japarov in 2020, Kyrgyzstan has beefed up its military and re-balanced power relations with Tajikistan, leading to more violent clashes.

Vlast spoke with Filippo Costa Buranelli, senior lecturer in International Relations at the University of St. Andrews, to assess the significance of the deal.

After decades without a clear border demarcation, did the two sides agree because of the increased violence in recent years?

We can say that the clashes prompted the resolution, but they didn’t necessarily lead to a resolution. There are several reasons, dynamics, and factors that paved the way towards a peaceful and diplomatic resolution of the border dispute.

Within Kyrgyzstan, Japarov in the last two and a half years has managed to consolidate a ‘power vertical’ (vertikal vlasti in Russian), something that is important in the context of Central Asian regional diplomacy, because it signals to the neighbors who is in charge. For the purpose of opening a dialogue between the two countries, Japarov’s consolidation of strong rule around himself and [head of the National Security Committee Kamchybek] Tashiev set in stone power relations from the Kyrgyz side of the negotiation table. In Tajikistan, we observed a similar trend, with all responsibilities for the negotiation being allocated to Saimuddin Yatimov, Tashiev’s counterpart.

Was there a regional push towards the resolution of the dispute?

Regionally, the two sides probably learned from the example of Kempir Abad, in which Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan managed to solve their border disputes by agreeing to a land swap along the contested border lines. While we cannot prove that Kyrgyz and Tajik negotiators studied the Kempir Abad agreement, we can say this became a factor, especially for Kyrgyzstan, that facilitated the search for diplomatic solutions.

The consultative meetings of Central Asian heads of state also played a role. Behind closed doors, the neighboring states have exercised some sort of gentle and moral suasion on the matter. In 2023, not by chance, Japarov traveled to Dushanbe ahead of the consultative meetings in order to meet [Tajikistan’s President Emomali] Rahmon bilaterally. This was a sign of the opening of a new phase, diplomatically. While there were 30+ years of negotiation without resolution, several factors were at play in more recent years, which precipitated the agreement. The conflicts of 2022 worked as a trigger, an escalation that needed diplomacy to de-escalate.

The two diplomatic machines finally managed to find a common ground. It’s important that the agreement was reached without [overt] mediation from outside. Part of the protracted process was also the meddling or attempted meddling of neighboring countries and great powers in the process. Both leaderships in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan pushed back against this meddling, emphasizing how the resolution of the border dispute must have come from a bilateral dialogue. They even kindly rejected a mediation proposal coming from [Kazakhstan’s President Kassym-Jomart] Tokayev, for example.

Both countries can now claim that they worked for peace and stability in the region.

Did any of the sides score a diplomatic victory with this agreement?

While the content of the agreement is not public, neither side has ‘won’ in terms of either territory or diplomacy against each other – and they would have not signed it otherwise. They probably won against those who bet that there would not be a resolution and expected either a war or an escalation of the border conflict. Instead, both countries can now claim that they worked for peace and stability in the region.

What was the role of the public in finding a solution?

People in border villages had no say in resolving disputes and were simply given the final decision, which was made through a secretive, hierarchical, and politicized process. The media was barely allowed to comment or report on the issue, unless there was a meeting of the two border commissions. Speculations were clamped down and this goes hand in hand with the consolidation of the ‘power vertical’ in Kyrgyzstan. The crackdown on media was also reflected in how the situation on the border was severely underreported, partly to give it a connotation of ‘high security’ but also to prevent misinformation and the spreading of fake news that could have been weaponized by other politicians. If there were losers, these could be some of the border communities that will have to relocate, like in the case of Kempir Abad.

What changes now in Central Asia after the border agreement?

The resolution of the dispute is now more significant because Central Asia is increasingly connected, integrated, and interlinked within itself, through new projects of economic, transport, and energy cooperation. The Kyrgyz-Tajik section of the CASA-1000 project is now complete after many years in the making. Before, during, and after the clashes Kyrgyz engineers were still traveling to Dushanbe to work on the transmission line together with their Tajik colleagues.

To keep up with the region’s growing connectivity, clearly defining their border is the least these two countries can do to align with Central Asia’s organic developments and benefit from increased cross-border movement. Demographic pressure, especially in Tajikistan, is driving migration northward, while water scarcity remains a challenge. All these issues made it imperative to establish a framework of dialogue.

Will the agreement hold in the future? What if there is a power transition in Kyrgyzstan and/or Tajikistan?

These agreements will be respected, even if the leadership in either or both of these countries change. The deal will hold: There have been no instances of revanchism or revisionism years and decades after other borders have been agreed upon. I don’t see why that particular segment would have to be disputed in the future. The absence of an agreement had been a factor of destabilization. These kinds of territorial agreements are generally not subject to renegotiation. But we need to be aware that, as is the case now with a number of Western leaders, in foreign policy or even international law nothing is really set in stone.

The understanding that the safety and stability of one country means the safety and stability of all countries in Central Asia has finally matured.

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