Battles within CSTO: War and peace in heart of Asia Serhey Bohdan's standpoint

On October 20, amid a tense border conflict with Dushanbe, Kyrgyzstan lifted restrictions on the purchase of hunting rifles for its citizens in the areas bordering Tajikistan and Uzbekistan. Bishkek also abolished conscription age restrictions for the need to defend the same areas. By mobilising the border population, the Kyrgyz authorities are trying to confront neighbouring Tajikistan, which has a stronger army. Amid the escalating Russian-Ukrainian war, could a major armed conflict break out in Central Asia?

Battles within the CSTO

Handing out weapons to the locals is unlikely to increase the chances of the Kyrgyz side surviving a clash with the heavily-armed Tajik army. Not surprisingly, Bishkek is trying other means, including a call for the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) to send observers to the Kyrgyz-Tajik border. Both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are members of the CSTO, but the organisation, in which Russia plays a leading role, has so far dealt mainly with external threats. The Kyrgyz leadership disagrees with this approach, and indeed, after the CSTO operation in Kazakhstan in January, it became completely illogical to say that the CSTO is only defending the external length of the bloc's borders. Underlining his disagreement with the actions (or rather inaction) of the CSTO and Russia, Kyrgyz President Sadyr Japarov did not go to the informal summit of the CIS countries on the occasion of the 70th anniversary of Russian President Putin, which was held in Saint Petersburg on October 7. Two days later, Bishkek cancelled a CSTO "Unbreakable Brotherhood" exercise on its territory, and the Kyrgyz did not participate in the Rubezh-2022 manoeuvre in Tajikistan.

But it is impossible to draw parallels between these actions and the actions towards the CSTO by the Armenian leadership under Pashinyan. Pashinyan has always set the objective of withdrawing Armenia from a close alliance with Russia. And in comparison, the Kyrgyz Deputy Prime Minister Edil Baisalov recently commented on the refusal of Bishkek to participate in CSTO events: "We have absolutely inviolable membership in the CSTO, we have no problems in relation to this organization ... But, of course, in the light of recent events the blood has not cooled down".

As for the Russian position, the Kremlin is not particularly inclined to get involved in the current conflict. Russian President Putin was in Astana for a trilateral meeting with Kyrgyz President Zhaparov and Tajik President Rakhmon, among other events. In a public statement, Putin said, "Both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are among our close allies. We work very closely within the framework of international organisations, and we are certainly strategic partners". But, as the Moscow newspapers wrote, "Only one side - the Kyrgyz side - was satisfied with this meeting. Indeed, the President of Tajikistan Rakhmon already in Astana publicly rebuked Moscow for its lack of respect for its partners in the region. Russian experts generally say that Dushanbe put its main security stake on China.

Grassroots conflict

Conflicts on the Tajikistan-Kyrgyzstan border in the Ferghana Valley have flared up intermittently for two decades. According to Tajik data, there have been more than 230 incidents in the past 12 years, particularly acute in 2014 and 2019. Usually, these clashes have been reduced to localised vandalism, beatings, and smashed-up cars at particular sections of the border.

This all changed dramatically last April when a dispute among local residents over the installation of a surveillance camera by the Tajik side at a water supply facility on the Isfara River not only resulted in stone-throwing by dissenting Kyrgyz but also led to clashes along a kilometre-long section of the border. It was also the first time that large-scale clashes involving security forces had taken place in several remote locations. It was also the first time they started to burn houses - both the involvement of security forces and the destruction of settlements themselves may have been a "local initiative" in some cases. In any case, this scenario was repeated in the current round of bloody confrontations that began on September 14.

The problem in the relations between the two Central Asian countries is not so much the borders of the 1920s - however much one may say about the "clumsy division" of Central Asia in those years, the delimitation of the newly formed republics at that time went through a long process of political consultation and expert knowledge - not only languages and other cultural features of the population were considered, but also economic integration, transport and other factors. In the case of the specific current conflicts, their origins should rather be sought in the consequences of border adjustments due to the construction of canals and reservoirs in the 1950s as part of the agricultural development of the region. Moreover, they are generated not so much by the adjustment of boundaries themselves as by the lack of appropriate boundary markers on the ground. As a result, the Tajik side has been referring to maps dating back to the 1920s and the Kyrgyz side to the 1950s, but instead of the border, the line of confrontation is becoming clearer on the ground.

And it is not entirely due to the intransigence of the two countries' leaderships. At the outbreak of the current crisis, both Rakhmon and Japarov were in Samarkand for the SCO summit on September 15-16 and were immediately able to negotiate a ceasefire. However, this did not help. The situation was similar last spring when the heads of state security agencies quickly agreed to a de-escalation. Even now, while handing out weapons to their citizens on the border with Tajikistan, Kyrgyz leaders stressed in interviews: "People demanded that we take some measures to repel second Tajik aggression. I want to emphasise: this should not be perceived as preparation for a new escalation of the conflict but as a desire to avoid it... We want the opposite side to sober up. Now there are proposals to deprive Emomali Rakhmon of the title of honorary citizen of Bishkek. But we do not want to do this. We still believe that the time will come that Rakhmon will come to Bishkek as a distinguished guest".

As they say, feel the difference with the fierce rhetoric towards each other to which the parties in Eastern Europe have descended! In short, the clashes on the Tajik-Kyrgyz border are more about low-level conflict. And as Al-Jazeera notes, "The agreements between the capitals do not reflect local sentiments. Therefore, a solution to the problem is difficult. The Kyrgyzstani leadership proposes closing the issue through a land swap, but that is unlikely because of the complex nature of Ferghana Valley as Central Asia's most densely populated, predominantly agricultural area. And this means that locals there will fight to the last for every scrap of land."

Echoes of the pandemic and the Russian-Ukrainian war in Central Asia

However, it should be noted that Kyrgyz-Tajik disputes are not just over territory, land as such, but over various natural components (such as water sources) and resources (such as pastures), which are sometimes difficult to topographically divide without causing damage to other resources. For example, agricultural activities in the area often require a lot of water (say, for growing cotton or rice) which has to be specifically transported to the fields. And livestock farmers, accordingly, need pastures higher up in the mountains in the hot summer, which may be nearby, but already in another republic. In other words, it often turns out that farming in the region is only possible with open borders and good neighbourly cooperation.

The situation has also been aggravated by the effects of climate change processes in recent years - the melting of glaciers in the mountains disrupts the hydrological regimes of rivers, and the glaciers and rivers may be under the jurisdiction of different countries. Add to this the factor of demographic growth that is occurring throughout the Ferghana Valley and in all three countries that belong to different parts of it. According to the UN, Tajikistan's population is growing by 2.4 per cent a year, faster than that of the other states in the region, and the country's population is already approaching 10 million. Kyrgyzstan's demographic growth is not far behind, but its population now stands at only 6.7 million.

The final straw that has exacerbated the situation on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border since last spring may have been the consequences of the pandemic. For one thing, it has disrupted trade flows, in particular, agricultural products from the region. And after all, the border between Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan is also the border of the Eurasian Economic Union and the corresponding customs zone, which includes Kyrgyzstan but does not include Tajikistan, which increases the economic role of this poorly defined border.

On the other hand, as a result of the global economic downturn, remittances from natives of the region working abroad have declined. Russia alone hosts one million Kyrgyz nationals and two million Tajik nationals. In 2021, remittances from Tajiks working abroad accounted for 35% of Tajikistan's GDP and 33% of Kyrgyzstan's GDP, placing the countries in the world's top five most migrant-dependent nations, according to the World Bank. By comparison, in Uzbekistan, the share of remittances in GDP is already only 13%, and in Kazakhstan, it is a negligible 0.2%.

And by the way, this year these remittances of migrant workers to Central Asia are expected to fall by about a quarter - an estimate is unlikely to be accurate because it is difficult to separate funds from migrant workers and funds from Russians transferred abroad because of the sanctions against Russia. So the war in Ukraine, which is leading to an economic downturn in Russia, may contribute to "warming up" this conflict in Central Asia as well.

Good news from Central Asia

While it is common to write about Central Asia as a hotbed of instability and crisis, it is difficult to agree with that when looking at current trends. The countries of the region are finding solutions to their problems on their own! Kyrgyz politicians often stress, probably appealing to a Western audience, that part of the problem is that 'Kyrgyzstan is democratic and Tajikistan is not'. Let's leave aside the assessment of who is more democratic, especially since democracy is often confused with a lack of governance in general.

The argument is not without merit: for some reason, the Uzbek leadership was recently able to reach an agreement with Tajikistan on the demining and delimitation of the Uzbek-Tajik border. Recall that this border has been mined since the early 2000s because of Tashkent's fears that radical armed groups could cross it. And another important point is that in this case the countries and peoples of the region have again demonstrated the obvious - they are capable of resolving their disputes themselves, without Moscow, Washington, Brussels, etc. global players. As Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev recently noted: "International organisations and other states offered themselves as mediators to remove mines, but I refused. Because our own forces are enough for this. After all, we can't be in a bad relationship with our neighbours!"

For this reason, the problem should be clearly named: instability is specific to the Kyrgyz-Tajik border, whereas Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have quickly resolved all border issues in recent years and are planning to finalise the border by the end of this year.

The ideological analyses of the situation in Central Asia, which refer to some age-old clash of cultures and civilisations, are all the more untenable. Are these clashes a manifestation of some ancient conflict between Iranian and Turkic civilizations, between 'Iran' and 'Turan'? But Tajikistan is a country with many links with neighbouring Turkic peoples. The same Sadriddin Aini wrote in Uzbek, and famous writers of neighbouring Turkic peoples sometimes wrote in Persian (Tajik). Working with the archives of the Tajik Communist Party's regional committees in the 1980s, I was amazed that meetings included speeches in Tajik and Russian, and often in Uzbek, Kyrgyz, and Turkmen! The famous German Iranian scholar Gerhard Döerfer once remarked that although Tajik itself is of Iranian group, judging by its linguistic features it is in the transition towards Turkic languages. There is no clash of cultures and civilizations - there is a complex of cultures of the Central Asian peoples. Therefore, it is not surprising that Iranian Tajikistan, faced with Turkic Kyrgyzstan, is friends with equally Turkic Uzbekistan.

One last optimistic point about Central Asia. We had been told for years that if the Americans withdrew from Afghanistan, it would cause instability. It was said to be almost an axiom, as if the Afghans and their neighbours, like savages without occupiers, were incapable of managing their lives at all and would kill each other. More than a year has passed since the fall of the pro-American regime in Kabul, and all is quiet in Central Asia - yes, a few rockets of unknown origin flew into Uzbekistan from Afghanistan in July, but it is hard to consider it a serious threat. Yes, Afghanistan itself is full of problems in general and with its new government in particular, but this is by no means the regional apocalypse that was written about with the withdrawal of US troops and the fall of the pro-American regime!

To summarise, despite the tensions between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, the situation in Central Asia does not look explosive at the moment. The Russian-Ukrainian war is indeed heating up the situation on the Kyrgyz-Tajik border, but the problem in the area should not be generalised to the entire vast region, as, in the case of the Kyrgyz-Tajik conflict, it is local disputes, exacerbated by agrarian overpopulation and economic decline, that are most important. They are dangerous and will not go anywhere without a fundamental solution to the development problems of the border regions - but they are still local.

At the same time, trends towards stabilisation of the rest of the Central Asian region are evident - border issues are being resolved, the countries are demilitarising their borders as a result of increased mutual trust, and cooperation within the region is increasing, especially due to the active role of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. To this should be added the difficult, but generally relatively unconflicted development of the situation around Afghanistan.

All this creates favourable conditions for Azerbaijan and Türkiye to pursue a policy of building new channels of cooperation not only with Central Asian states but also between the countries of the region and the rest of the world - as exemplified by the recent talks between Baku and Astana on the possibility of building alternative pipeline routes through Azerbaijan.