BISHKEK. Nov 20 (Interfax) - Government delegations of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan agreed on more than 500 kilometers of the common border line at the Bishkek talks on delimitation and demarcation of the two countries' common border and plan to sign a treaty accordingly.
The parties reached an agreement on the draft boundary treaty to cover 519.9 out of 970 kilometers of the border length and also discussed the project description and the border line route across the remaining non-described sections during the talks, the Kyrgyz government press service told Interfax on Friday.
The head of the Kyrgyz delegation, First Deputy Prime Minister Aali Karashev, believes that "completion of the border delimitation and demarcation process is one of the crucial pre-conditions for the stability of Kyrgyz-Tajik relations."
At this point, it has become necessary to accelerate the negotiating process, discover new approaches, and search for mutually acceptable solutions to currently existing issues, he said.
Agreements on the promotion of border delimitation and demarcation issues and possible exchanges of certain land plots as mutually agreed and subject to the will of residents of the two countries' border areas were also reached at the meeting between the Kyrgyz and Tajik delegations, the press service said.
The problem of non-completion of the process of delimitation and demarcation of the state Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan border is one of the reasons behind the occurrence of multiple border incidents in recent years with involvement of local residents and security personnel. Several incidents were associated with an intense use of arms by Kyrgyz and Tajik border guards.