[NTDTV, Beijing time, September 17, 2022]On the last day of the three-day Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) member state summit, the border guards of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, two member states of Central Asia, broke out. About 30 people were reportedly killed and dozens injured in the clashes. The two countries accused each other of violating the ceasefire agreement, and Russia appeared on the 16th to mediate, urging “urgent” measures to stop the violence.
Kyrgyzstan and neighboring Tajikistan are engaged in fierce fighting in the latest violent clash between the former Soviet Union member states as Russia grapples with the battlefield in Ukraine.
Kyrgyzstan’s border guards have accused Tajikistan of occupying parts of the border that have not yet been delineated and escalating the fighting by firing rockets at the border town of Batken, with a population of about 30,000. Tajikistan said Kyrgyz guards opened fire without provocation.
Kyrgyzstan has accused Tajik forces of escalating the fighting by firing rockets into the border town of Batken, a population of about 30,000 in the southeast of the country.
The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reported that Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan share a border of about 1,000 kilometers, of which more than one-third has a border dispute. After the disintegration of the Soviet Union, the border between the two countries continued to be disputed.
The new wave of clashes that started earlier this week continued into the 16th, despite an earlier agreement between Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov and Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit in Uzbekistan. The armies of the two sides ceased fire and retreated, but the two sides still accused each other of attacking first, violating the ceasefire agreement.
The Kyrgyz Ministry of Health said on the 16th that about 24 Kyrgyz nationals had been killed so far; Tajikistan earlier reported that at least three of them were killed.
The local branch of the International Red Cross reported that nearly 20,000 people had fled their homes to seek refuge; however, the Kyrgyz Ministry of Emergencies was quoted by Russia’s Interfax as saying that more than 136,000 people had been evacuated from the war zone.
Russia, which has close ties to the two countries, mediated on the 16th, urging “urgent” measures to end the violence.
The ceasefire agreement took effect at 4 p.m. local time on the 16th, but Kyrgyzstan said that two of their border villages were still shelled, and accused Tajikistan of dispatching tanks and armored personnel carriers; Tajikistan countered that the Kyrgyz army used “heavy weapons” for shelling An outpost and 7 villages.
The conflict has once again raised the fear of a full-scale war between the two countries. In 2021, the largest conflict to date between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan will result in nearly 50 deaths.
Earlier this week, two other former Soviet republics, Armenia and Azerbaijan (Azerbaijan), fought for the controversial Nagorno. The Karabakh (Nagorno-Karabakh, referred to as Naka) region resumed fighting, and more than 200 soldiers were killed on both sides. It highlights that Russia is incompetent due to the Ukrainian war, and potential unstable factors around it are gradually emerging.
(Editor in charge: Lu Yongxin)
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