After a 2-year break, fighting between Armenian and Azerbaijani forces resumed in the Transcaucasia. However, tensions tucked deep into the Ferghana Valley have become almost invisible to the ordinary Ukrainian average citizen. We are talking about a 30-year series of shootouts on the border of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, the former Soviet roommates. Any misunderstanding on the border can trigger new bloody clashes. And tardiness in resolving issues related to the delimitation and demarcation of problematic sections of the Tajik-Kyrgyz border can only increase the number of casualties and destruction. And it did not take long - on September 14-17 the bloodiest skirmishes took place on the disputed border section of the Batken region of Kyrgyzstan, the territory of which is riddled with numerous enclaves belonging to the Sughd region of Tajikistan. This does not take into account the additional enclave of Soh in the Fergana province of Uzbekistan, around which territories there have also at one time been clashes between residents of neighboring settlements.

The chronology of the conflict is as follows:

On September 14 there were three firefights in three different areas - Bulak-Bashy, Kak-Sai, and Pasky-Aryk. The sides accused each other of provoking the shooting - according to the Kyrgyz side the Tajik border guards were the first to shoot, and according to the Tajik side, the Kyrgyz military was the first to shoot. By the evening of the same day, there was a withdrawal of troops by agreement between the border services of the two countries.

On September 16, according to the Kyrgyz Border Guard Service, Tajik border guards began firing at the Kok-Tash and Samarkandek outposts "violating the agreement”. Some local Kyrgyz Telegram channels also reported an escalation in other sections of the border area. Later, the Tajik military occupied a school building in the Kyrgyz village of Dostuk. It was also reported that Tajikistan directly shelled the Kyrgyz regional center of Batken and its airport; civilian infrastructure in the city was destroyed. Tajik border guards accused the Kyrgyz side of shelling their own border villages. Local residents reported that the Kyrgyz side continued shelling settlements on the border of Chorku jamoat, where houses were destroyed and civilians were injured. In neighboring areas, 12 citizens of Tajikistan were reported killed.

On September 17 "The heads of security agencies and local authorities are negotiating the full withdrawal of heavy equipment and soldiers to their permanent bases," said the presidential spokesman of Kyrgyzstan Erbol Sultanbayev. In addition, some sources reported that shelling has ceased and the situation is stabilizing, and the injured are being moved to the safer areas.

On September 19 The State Committee for National Security of the Republic of Tajikistan Border Troops Department in Sughd Province accused Kyrgyzstan of "provocative actions aimed at destabilizing the situation on the Tajik-Kyrgyz border. The parties continued to accuse each other of firing and "gunplays" on both sides of the border. Nevertheless, that same day, the heads of the SCNS of Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan signed a protocol on the stabilization and resolution of the situation in the border areas. According to the latest data, 59 Kyrgyz were killed and 163 were injured. Tajik authorities reported 41 dead and 30 wounded. The situation remained tense, but the relevant commissions began work to assess injuries and release the detainees. The next day the situation finally stabilized.

At the end of the week, on Sunday, September 25, the parties signed peace, namely the protocol #42 of the meeting of the delegations of the Kyrgyz and Tadjik Republics on the stabilization of the situation in the border areas. It should be noted that this large-scale conflict took place suspiciously during the annual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) held in Uzbekistan on September 15-16. Cooperation between the special services became possible thanks to the agreements resulting from the meeting of Kyrgyz president Sadyr Zhaparov and his Tajik counterpart Emomali Rakhmon on a ceasefire and the withdrawal of troops, which was held on the margins of the summit back on September 16, the day of the biggest escalation.

The question of whether another peace will last long remains open. In principle, the sides have maintained the current status quo, and once again delayed the issue of border demarcation. So far only 664 kilometers of the 987 kilometers or 68.4 % of the border line has been agreed upon between the parties. Only in 2021, the parties were able to agree on about 80 km of the border and, of course, there is still a lot of work to be done for the final settlement. But in order for the Ukrainian observer to understand the contradictions of the distant, but once neighboring from the Russian czarist and Soviet past, the root cause of such events should be explained first. The answer is unusually complex and stems from deep historical contradictions that have forced the two countries to be on different sides of the barricades, despite the showcase of external prosperity within the CIS and membership in the CSTO.

Let us turn our attention to the map and the areas where the main events of the conflict took place. The border between the countries is indented and not all sections have natural boundaries, such as mountains, ridges, large and small rivers, or bodies of water. Historically, they have marked the borders of many states, but not here. The Fergana valley is a lowland, where historically many nations, both sedentary and nomadic - ancestors of modern Tajiks, Uzbeks, and Kyrgyz, who for many centuries populated the fertile land, beginning with the migration of Oghuz Turks (X-XI centuries), the expansion of the Mongol Tatars (XII century), the campaigns of the troops of Tamerlane (Timur) and his descendant Babur (XIV - XVI centuries), the migration of Iranian peoples, etc.

Many villages and settlements on both sides adjoin each other, and the territory of both countries (including neighboring Uzbekistan as well) is permeated by numerous enclaves through which major transport arteries pass, affecting the socio-economic life of local residents. As a rule, it is such rugged areas that constitute the core of the problems that have fallen to the uneasy share of relations between the countries of the Fergana Valley.

Therefore, it can be confirmed that the geographical factor itself was the origin of all problems and that it began to play an increasingly tangible role in the formation of precise borders between the major regional powers that were struggling to establish their influence later on. This became especially noticeable during the fragmentation of the small Uzbek and Iranian khanates, which became easy prey to the Russian Empire's increasing expansion from the north in the mid-19th century. In parallel, the influence of the British Crown from the south increased, which by this time had finally established its dominance in India and intended to conquer inaccessible Afghanistan, using a well-tested mechanism of "divide and conquer".

Thus, under Russian domination, the territory of the Fergana Valley was included in the newly formed Fergana Province, the former lands of the Kokand Khanate conquered by the Russian Empire in March 1876. 

In economic terms, however, the subordinated nations were not in a particular conflict, since the Russian military administration was physically unable to control all of the vast territories. Because of this, many nations had certain freedoms in domestic politics. Therefore all sorts of disputes were only on a domestic scale and were quickly resolved by the local elites, who formed the backbone of the provincial administrators, for example, in the collection of taxes and determination of land management. Later, during the collapse of the Russian Empire and the outbreak of the civil war, inter-ethnic disputes did not manifest themselves much either. The existing confrontation at that time concerned exclusively political aspects - the preservation of the old regime (Transcaspian Provisional Government), support for either revolutionary power (Bukhara People's Soviet Republic (BNSR), Khorezm Socialist Soviet Republic (KSSR), Turkestan ASSR), or national self-determination as an independent state (Khiva Khanate, Bukhara Emirate, Kokand autonomy).

The main reason for the current conflicts on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border is seen in the national and territorial division of Central Asia that started in 1924 and led to the establishment of the incorrect borders between the newly born republics of the USSR after the Civil War and the struggle against Basmachi. This was marked by the liquidation of the Turkestan ASSR, the BNSR, and the KSSR, followed by the formation of new national republics - the Turkmen SSR, the Uzbek SSR (which included the Tajik ASSR, which became a separate union republic in 1929), the Kyrgyz ASSR (the future Kazakh SSR from 1936), the Kara-Kirghiz autonomous region, which became the Kirghiz SSR in 1936. As was expected at that time, the established homogeneous "national republics" were to reduce the degree of potential inter-ethnic conflicts and strengthen the Soviet power in the region, supporting Lenin's principles of ensuring the rights of nations for self-determination. ​​The process of demarcation, which laid the foundations of the republics' statehood, was complex: already at the stage of drafting the border delimitation, territorial disputes broke out between local national clans, which, incidentally, did not disappear when the communist system was established and the Basmachi movement disappeared. In most cases, they saw the demarcation as an opportunity to expand the territory of their national republic at the expense of their neighbors.

That is, we can say that on the basis of the territories of Soviet Turkestan, Bukhara, and Khorezm several autonomous formations were hastily formed which were incorporated first directly into Soviet Russia (RSFSR), then into Uzbekistan, and then transformed into full-fledged union republics. Not all borders between them were drawn precisely in accordance with the ethnic composition of the respective territories, but contrary to it on the basis of intraparty consensus. As a result, petty domestic conflicts began to arise, with the potential to escalate into larger-scale clashes. The central party leadership had to act as a forum in which they tried to solve all the disputes that arose behind the scenes. The only thing that saved them from bloodshed was the fact that the established borders were only formal, and anyone not involved in local economic activities could move freely through these territories.

Nevertheless, sporadic disputes between the leaders of the Kyrgyz SSR and the Tajik SSR erupted again. This was caused by infrastructural issues, because in both republics, since the mass industrialization of the 1930s, energy facilities and new transport arteries were gradually built, and water reservoirs were created to expand irrigation systems for local needs. Another "arbiter" of such disputes was Moscow. Politically, the Soviet era completely refocused all political, economic, and cultural ties of the national republics with Russia, but at the same time, they became isolated from the international political processes developing in the Middle East. Therefore, already after the collapse of the USSR, despite the commitment to maintaining traditional ties within the CIS, there was a political vacuum in the region for some time. The newly-created states began to actively seek their place in the new world order. The interests of Russia, the US, China, and Turkey have clashed in the region. Separately, the situation in the region is influenced by the Islamic factor, whose stakeholders were and are Saudi Arabia and Pakistan through Afghanistan. Such an international situation can't be favorable for the final demarcation of borders and the establishment of firm peace between the republics no matter what international organizations and military-political blocs they are "clothed" in.

At the moment, however, Moscow retains the leading position in controlling the situation. And this is not about economic dependence or a role in the CSTO to respond to possible "crisis situations”. It is a question of providing a physical opportunity to demarcate the border. Although the work of the Intergovernmental Commission on Delimitation and Demarcation of the State Border between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan has been going on for 20 years, the situation is complicated by the fact that the topographic working group, as well as the working group on legal issues of the Kyrgyz and Tajik delegations, are still unable to resolve the rest of the border and the situation regarding the Tajik enclaves because the Tajik side is referring to Soviet maps of the 1920s and 1930s, while the Kyrgyz - of the 1950s. However, it is not a secret that the Russian Federation is the legal successor of the USSR and the depository of many archival data from past eras. This fact, as well as the intention to preserve its influence in Central Asia against the background of operational failures in the context of the war in Ukraine and in relations with Western countries, gives a clear advantage to the Russian Federation, which at its own discretion can dictate its own interests in resolving the situation. Russian President Vladimir Putin made this explicitly clear to his Kyrgyz and Tajik counterparts during the trilateral meeting of the presidents in Astana on October 13. However, the next day he got unequivocal expressions in response, e.g., from President Emomali Rakhmon of Tajikistan: "We want to be respected. Are we some kind of foreigners? You don't have to invest a lot of money in us. Vladimir Vladimirovich, I would like to ask you not to have a policy towards Central Asia as towards the former Soviet Union.” The intrigue remains.

Taking into account the behavior of "hawks" in the leadership of Kazakhstan and Tajikistan, as well as Russia's wait-and-see attitude, it is too premature to talk about full-fledged peace. Despite the cease-fire, the sides show their determination with many messages. Not long ago, in October, the sides began again to accuse each other of failing to comply with the agreements reached. On Kyrgyzstan's side, the military and special services intend to actively protect the border with the help of imported drones. The Chairman of the Cabinet of Ministers of Kyrgyzstan, Akylbek Japarov, declared provocateurs and a third force involved in the conflict at the border. At the same time, some representatives of civil society, not lagging behind Kyrgyz MPs, actively call for an investigation of the facts of the "aggression" of the Tadjik Republic against the Kyrgyz Republic, using to the full extent the mechanisms of their own practice of "soft power".

As for the Tajik side, in addition to regular accusations against their Kyrgyz colleagues, the military continues to establish ties with all kinds of geopolitical actors, using cases both in problematic areas of the northern border and in the south, given the difficult situation in Afghanistan. At the same time, the military is establishing ties with Iran regarding defensive cooperation, including solving the issue of buying Iranian drones, which have all chances to be used not only along the Afghan but also the Kyrgyz border with all the ensuing consequences.

One way or another, will there be a moment of truth in the stalled border disputes between the two countries? And could it affect the peaceful life of the whole densely populated Fergana Valley in general? That is what future events will show. In any case, the region has a chance to get a negative scenario, unless methodological efforts are made and the political will of all interested countries to stabilize the situation is taken into account.