Border Issues Ruffle Relations Among Central Asian States

Border issues continue to ruffle relations among Central Asian states, with Uzbekistan playing a central role in many of the disputes. In particular, Tashkent's practice of mining its borders has faced growing criticism in recent weeks.

Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have been the most vocal critic of the Uzbek mining policy, which Tashkent asserts is a key pillar of its anti-terrorism strategy. The chief of Tajikistan's Mine Action Center, Jonmahmad Rajabov, said the Uzbek policy had done far more harm to civilians, than to alleged terrorists. He added that mines have caused over 120 Tajik casualties since 2000, 62 of whom died. "Tashkent justifies its actions by the need to protect its border from infiltration by international terrorists, but only Tajik civilians have died from mines so far," Rajabov told reporters February 3.

Helping to fan mine-related tension is the fact that long stretches of Uzbekistan's frontier with both Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan are not properly demarcated. Rajabov alleged that Uzbekistan had mined "even those sections of the border which the Uzbekistani side considers [our] territory."

Kyrgyz officials largely concur with the Tajik view. Many in Bishkek complain that Uzbek President Islam Karimov's government has effectively refused to engage neighboring states in a search for a mutually satisfactory solution to the mine issue. At an early February conference in Tashkent, titled Regional Security in Central Asia, Kyrgyz officials pressed Tashkent to be more responsive.

"We understand that raising this issue may not be to the liking of Tashkent, which has for a long time now avoided discussing this subject and has refused to provide maps of mine fields," the Russian daily Kommersant quoted one member of the Kyrgyz delegation as saying. "However, civilians are being blown up ... with, you could say, frightening regularity. ... And we have just stopped counting the number of animals killed by mines."

Compounding the existing danger to civilians in border zones is a lack of accurate maps of minefields. The Geneva International Center for Humanitarian Demining (GICHD) mission has concluded: "Uzbekistan has so far only sporadically marked minefields laid by its armed forces". The GICHD sponsored a conference on the anti-mining Ottawa Convention from February 9-13. A Kyrgyzstan delegate to the conference reportedly insisted on mining parts of its border with Uzbekistan, in part because Tashkent had already laid its own explosives.

The GICHD also criticized Tajikistan for "a generalized reluctance