The Last Contested Border in Central Asia Celebrates Peace After Years-Long Conflic

Two of the Central Asian ‘Stans’ have agreed to shift their borders after decades of violent frontier flare-ups, celebrating peace between neighbors.

Not every country can enjoy a border as easily delineated as Colorado and Kansas. Few areas of the world can boast a worse cartographical headache than the Fergana Valley.

Located where the borders of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan touch, this fertile region appears like a Jackson Pollock painting, as bits of each nation jut into each other, and drops of sovereign territory are scattered here and there surrounded by foreign land.

To make matters worse, the Fergana Valley, like so much of Central Asia, is home to nomadic pastoralists who for generations never had to think about international borders.

Out of this chaos—courtesy of the Soviet Union—disputes over grazing and water rights and who knows what else have boiled over into outbreaks of extreme violence and unrest along the borders of the Kyrgyzstan region of Batken and northern Sughd region of Tajikistan.

Now however, after successful diplomacy, the two nations have agreed to shift their borders in order to end existing conflict motives.

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Several controversial roads through the rough terrain will be declared ‘neutral’ and available for either nation to use. The authorities will also relocate the inhabitants of the villages exchanged under the agreement, according to the Defense Post, while a vital irrigation canal has had access rights eased for both parties.

After 2022 saw the deadliest fighting in the area since the 1990s, the presidents of the two nations discussed a border agreement openly during a meeting at the UN, a rare moment of warmth and civility that suggested a deal might be possible.

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