BISHKEK/OSH. Aug 24 (Interfax) - Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev has ordered the national government to review the existent border treaties.
"Facts that former presidents and other high-ranking officials acknowledged rights of neighbor countries to the lands the people of Kyrgyzstan deem to be native Kyrgyz territories become obvious time after time," the presidential press service quoted Atambayev to Interfax as telling Foreign Minister Erlan Abdyldaev and head of the Presidential Administration's Foreign Affairs Department Sapar Isakov.
"The officials covered up information about those 'concessions' and neither people nor even the incumbent administration, including the president, were aware of them," Atambayev said.
The population of Kyrgyzstan "must know the truth about the previous 'agreements' signed by individuals who, unfortunately, were lawful representatives of Kyrgyzstan at that moment," he said.
"Although those documents were not ratified and did not take effect in the prescribed procedure, international legal norms make them the foundation of all future agreements, which significantly complicates the situation and creates a major impediment to the provision of national interests of Kyrgyzstan," the president said.
Therefore, Atambayev ordered the government and the foreign minister to make "a profound review of all international treaties and agreements," as well as protocols and memoranda signed by Kyrgyz officials, especially in regard to border issues.
The press service did not specify titles of those documents, but Kyrgyz experts believe these must be the agreements on certain sections of the border with Uzbekistan, among them Mount Ungar-Too in the Jalal-Abad region.
A number of Kyrgyz media outlets posted documents on Tuesday to demonstrate that the Kyrgyz-Uzbek delimitation and demarcation commission agreed in 2006, during the tenure of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, to recognize the disputable mountain as Uzbek territory. Yet the sides have not signed a related agreement since then, and the mountain has remained a non-delimitated area. There is a Kyrgyz radio relay tower on the mountain, and local residents see the area as their own.
Seven Uzbek policemen were dropped on the mountain by helicopter on August 22. The Kyrgyz State Border Service said on Wednesday that four employees of the radio relay station were taken to the Yangikurgan district police station of Uzbekistan. "Border officials from Uzbekistan said there were no reasons to worry about the detained Kyrgyz citizens," the State Border Service reported.
On the whole, the situation on the Kyrgyz-Uzbek state border is stable, and protection of the border sector near Mount Ungar-Too has been stepped up, the representative said.