BISHKEK. Jan 18 (Interfax) - The problem of the Uzbek and Tajik exclaves located in Kyrgyzstan cannot be resolved by simply swapping territories, Parliamentary Defense and Security Committee Chairman Tokon Mamytov, who was appointed as head of Tajikistan's Border Guard Service on Friday, told Interfax.
"In reality, as a rule, only 30% of options for such exchanges can be put into practice," he said.
Such an option is "unsuitable" for delimitating and demarcating Kyrgyzstan's borders with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan because they appeared differently, he said.
"The Shakhimardan and Sokh exclaves, located in the Batken region [in southern Kyrgyzstan] were transferred to Uzbekistan in Soviet times at the personal request of the first secretaries of the Communist Party Central Committee, and they were Kyrgyz territories. The same happened to the Tajik exclaves of Vorukh and Chorku," Mamytov said.
The official suggested that Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan should "find approaches to determining these borders". He proposed using maps drawn in the mid-1950s, when areas located on Kyrgyz territory were given to neighboring Soviet republics. These districts became exclaves following the collapse of the Soviet Union.
"Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have proposed discussing certain disputed areas with the help of maps dating back to 1926 and 1956. But the territory of Kyrgyzstan differs on these maps," he said.
Fifty-eight disputed sections, from 500 meters to 20 kilometers long, exist on the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border today, Mamytov said. Only 60% of Kyrgyzstan's border with Tajikistan has been described, he added.
Former Kyrgyz Defense Minister Ismail Isakov, for his part, said that solutions to these border issues should adhere to treaties and agreements that were signed in the 1990s. These documents recognize the former Soviet republics' borders as they existed in Soviet times.
In an interview with the Azattyk radio station, Isakov criticized the idea of using maps compiled in the 1950s.
"We were parts of one country in Soviet times, and Kyrgyz people settled and worked on the territory of Uzbekistan, and Uzbek citizens settled on our territory," he said.
"We should have said then that the border lies in this place in the Osh region [southern Kyrgyzstan], but these are your citizens. We should have asked them to repatriate these people, or they would have become our citizens. Or we should have offered them a similar land plot that was not an exclave and marked the borders on its basis," Isakov said.