BESHKEK: Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan said Friday they had agreed on a cease-fire after shootouts at their contested border left two Tajik citizens dead.
The violence that broke out Thursday evening and continued into the night was the bloodiest escalation between the countries since deadly clashes last year.
Kyrgyz and Tajik frontier communities regularly clash over land and water supplies, with border guards often drawn into the conflicts.
As a result of the latest conflict, “10 people were injured on the Tajik side, of which six were servicemen and four were civilians,” Tajikistan’s national security committee said.
Tajikistan added that the two dead were a man “killed by a mortar shell fired by Kyrgyz soldiers into his yard” and an ambulance driver.
Following the overnight clashes, Kyrgyzstan’s national security committee said Friday that it had reached an agreement for “a complete ceasefire” with Tajikistan during a meeting at the border between provincial governors and border service representatives.
The neighbors also agreed to withdraw forces, coordinate patrols of the frontier and ensure the flow of traffic along a strategic road that passes between both countries.
Kyrgyz President Sadyr Zhaparov sought to reassure citizens the conflict would be resolved “peacefully, through negotiations, God willing.”
The decision came after the secretary-general of Russia-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Stanislav Zas, called for an immediate cease-fire at the border, RIA news agency reported Thursday. It said Zas held phone talks with senior security officials from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
“The armed confrontation at the Tajik-Kyrgyz border should be immediately stopped,” he was quoted as saying by the news agency.
According to Reuters he also said that the CSTO, of which both countries are members, stood ready to help resolve the conflict. -Agencies
