DUSHANBE, August 4 2015, Asia-Plus -- Kyrgyz authorities say Kyrgyz border guards did not open fire at Tajik nationals.

According to a statement posted on Kyrgyz border service’s website, Kyrgyz border guards did not use weapons in a clash between Kyrgyz and Tajik nationals along the Kyrgyz-Tajik border.         

The statement that was posted on Kyrgyz border service’s website on Tuesday at 2:45 notes that the situation in the Mayskaya area, Batken district near the Kyrgyz-Tajik border remains complex.

The statement, in particular, says that residents of the Kyrgyz village of Kok-Tash and the Tajik village of Chorkuh gathered in the Mayskaya area near the border on Tuesday at around 1:00 pm and began throwing stones at each other.  As a result, three Kyrgyz citizens have sustained various injuries.   

“According to the preliminary information, a shot was fired from a smoothbore gun on Tajik territory.  No one suffered from the shot on Kyrgyz territory,” the statement says noting that negotiations are currently under way.

Border representatives of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan are reportedly monitoring the situation in border areas and border units are ready to conduct joint actions in case of deterioration of the situation.

We will recall that some sources in the Tajik northern city of Isfara say that Kyrgyz border guards opened fire at Tajik nationals.  An official source at the Isfara mayor’s office says two Tajik nationals were wounded and several houses in the Tajik village of Somoniyon were set on fire by Kyrgyz nationals.

The incident along the border started on August 3 when residents of the Kyrgyz village of Kok-Tash blocked the flow of water to the Tajik village of Chorkuh, which caused protests by Tajiks.

Some 200 local residents of Kok-Tash and Chorkuh gathered near the border on August 3 and threw stones at each other, damaging houses and injuring people.

Conflicts over water and land are still present between Kyrgyz and Tajiks in southern Kyrgyzstan.  Border incidents, most of which concern sections which have not been delimited, are leading to clashes between them.

Tajikistan’s common border with Kyrgyzstan is 978 kilometers in length and only 530 kilometers of it have been delimited so far.  The disputed 448 kilometers of the border run through densely populated areas of Tajikistan’s Sughd province

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.