By Olga Dzyubenko
BISHKEK (Reuters) – Kyrgyzstan reported “intense battles” with its Central Asian neighbor Tajikistan on Friday and said 24 people had been killed in the latest wave of violence to hit former Soviet republics.
The two small landlocked countries accuse each other of restarting fighting in a disputed area despite a ceasefire agreement.
In a statement, Kyrgyzstan’s border service said its forces continued to repel attacks from Tajikistan, and that “in some areas, intense battles are taking place”.
Kyrgyzstan’s Health Ministry said 24 citizens were killed and 87 wounded, Russian news agency Interfax said, without saying how many of the victims were military personnel.
Earlier, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov and his Tajik counterpart Emomali Rakhmon agreed to order a ceasefire and troop withdrawal at a meeting in Uzbekistan on Friday, the Kyrgyz president’s office said after clashes. deadly attacks between the two Russian allies.
The ceasefire was supposed to take effect from 4 pm local time, Kyrgyzstan’s border guards said in a statement. The Tajik authorities confirmed that an agreement had been reached.
Also on Friday, Moscow called for an end to hostilities.
Kyrgyzstan said Tajik forces, using tanks, armored vehicles and mortars, entered at least one Kyrgyz village and bombed the airport in the Kyrgyz town of Bat ken and adjacent areas.
On the other hand, Tajikistan has accused Kyrgyz forces of bombing an outpost and seven villages with “heavy weapons” in the same area, which is famous for its fragmented political and ethnic geography and became the site of similar hostilities last year, also almost leading to a war.
Clashes over the poorly demarcated border are frequent, but usually subside quickly.
Border issues in Central Asia largely stem from the Soviet era, when Moscow tried to divide the region between ethnic groups whose settlements were often located among those of other ethnicities.
(Reporting by Olga Dzyubenko; additional reporting by Nazarali Pirnazarov in Dushanbe)
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