Explaining the Kyrgyz-Tajik Border Clash: Hypotheses in Search of Corroboration

Jul 14, 2021 | Richard Weitz
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In late April 2021, fighting broke out along the frontier between Kyrgyzstan’s Batken province and Tajikistan’s Sughd province. The immediate dispute arose over management of the Golovnoy water distribution facility separating what the Kyrgyz call the Ak-suu and the Tajiks refer to as the Isfara River. As in the past, local residents threw rocks and employed some small arms and light weapons. On this occasion, though, the fighting soon escalated to engage professional military forces. As a result, dozens died, hundreds were wounded, and thousands fled to other locations before a ceasefire took effect on May 1.

From one perspective, the fighting arose due to long-unresolved tensions over demarcation and demography. Local competition for arable land and water has been worsened by the artificial borders created by the previous Soviet authorities, which complicate the management of trans-border resources. The Fergana Valley – which includes parts of northern Tajikistan, southern Kyrgyzstan, and eastern Uzbekistan – is particularly replete with ethnic exclaves, in which the nationals of one Central Asian republic are enveloped by the territory of a neighboring country. Of note, more than one-third of the 972km-long state boundary between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan remains to be demarcated.

Yet, the recent fighting had disturbingly novel elements, which suggest a more active role of national leaders in causing the crisis. For the first time, conflict parties used heavy weapons such as artillery and tanks. This escalation, moreover, follows the recent escalations of other intrastate conflicts in the former Soviet Union, such as in Nagorno-Karabakh between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The recent clash also began after Kyrgyzstan’s government in March proposed swapping parts of Kyrgyzstan’s Batken region for Tajikistan’s territory of Vorukh, an enclave enveloped by Kyrgyzstan’s territory. President Emomali Rahmon immediately rejected the trial balloon and then made a rare visit to Vorukh. Tajik officials may have seen the swap proposal as a threat since President Sadyr Japarov also announced that Kyrgyzstan’s armed forces would hold major military exercises in the area. In addition, policymakers in Dushanbe may have believed that the months of political turmoil in Kyrgyzstan would impede Bishkek’s response. The fighting also came when both leaders were burnishing their populist credentials, with Japarov having assumed power irregularly and Rahmon rumored to plan transferring power to his son.