BISHKEK. July 25 (Interfax) - Bishkek and Dushanbe are working via diplomatic channels to put the finishing touches to Kyrgyz President Sooronbai Jeenbekov's planned upcoming visit to Tajikistan, a source in the Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry told Interfax on Thursday.
The sides are discussing the date and venue for Jeenbekov's meeting with Tajik leader Emomali Rahmon, the source said, adding that the Kyrgyz president's visit to Tajikistan will be brief and can take place within the next few days.
The Kyrgyz presidential press service told Interfax on July 23 that Jeenbekov plans to visit Tajikistan to discuss border issues with the Tajik president.
The online newspaper Asia Plus said earlier, citing a Tajik government source, that the Tajik authorities are continuing preparations for a Rahmon-Jeenbekov meeting even despite a conflict that broke out between residents of two border villages on July 22. At their meeting, the sides are expected to discuss issues concerning the delimitation and demarcation of the two countries' border.
According to the information from Kyrgyz sources, at 5:20 p.m. on July 22 residents of the Tajik village erected their flagpole at the entry to the village in an undelimited section of the state order. Residents of the Kyrgyz border village of Aksai, in turn, opposed this step, leading to a verbal argument between residents of the two villages during which one of the sides opened fire. Seventeen Kyrgyz citizens were injured.
According to the Kyrgyz State Border Service, a hunting rifle was fired by civilians.
The Border Service of the Tajik State Committee for National Security, in turn, said on July 23 that one Tajik citizen was killed and several others were injured in the incident, which Dushanbe has described as a provocation "on the part of certain Kyrgyz circles who do not want peace and tranquility on the border." Furthermore, the flagpole that prompted the conflict was installed by Tajik citizens in the territory of their own village, it said. Tajik media said, citing doctors, that five Tajik citizens sustained gunshot wounds as a result of the conflict. One of them later died of his wounds. In all, some 15 Tajik citizens were hurt in the incident. All of them are being treated at Vorukh's hospital.
Kyrgyzstan, in turn, has dismissed accusations of staging a provocation on the border as groundless.
The Kyrgyz-Tajik border section where the latest incident occurred has not yet been delimited and has high conflict potential. Since the beginning of the year, several conflicts between residents of Vorukh and Aksai villages have taken place in the area, during which local roads were blocked.
Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan share a 971-kilometer border. The countries first opened border delimitation talks in the early 1990s, then suspended them, resuming them only two years ago. They have already delimited 583 kilometers.