DUSHANBE, February 11, 2015, Asia-Plus – On Tuesday February 10, Tajik President Emomali Rahmon received visiting Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Erlan Abyldayev.

According to the Tajik president’s official website, issues related to expanding bilateral cooperation between the two countries in the fields of politics, economics, regional security, science and culture were a major topic of the meeting.

A special attention was paid to demarcation and delimitation of disputable parts of Tajikistan’s common border with Kyrgyzstan and the sides exchanged views on a draft government-to-government agreement between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan on strengthening confidence building measures along the common border.

Rahmon and Abyldayev also pointed to the necessity of expanding bilateral cooperation between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan in solving regional problems such as rational use of water-and-energy, transit operations and regional trade, the source said.

Similar issues were discussed at a meeting of Erlan Abyldayev with his Tajik counterpart Sirojiddin Aslov that also took place yesterday.   

We will recall that Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan have been locked in a tense border dispute over Vorukh, an exclave of Tajikistan within Kyrgyzstan.

Kyrgyzstan has suggested using the maps of the periods of 1955-1959 for demarcation and delimitation of the disputable stretches of the border while Tajikistan has suggested working with documents and maps of the period of 1924-1927.  The maps of the early 1920s show the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic as incorporating Vorukh within its borders while the maps of the 1950s show Vorukh as an exclave within the Kyrgyz Soviet Socialist Republic.