The Democratic Party of Tajikistan reacted to the statement of the President of Kyrgyzstan Sadyr Japarov that Murghab district passed from Kyrgyzstan to Tajikistan in 1924.
It is noted that Murghab district is located about a thousand kilometers from Dushanbe on the territory of the Gorno-Badakhshan Autonomous Region.
«From a political point of view, the statement of the President of the Kyrgyz Republic is an attack on the territorial integrity of Tajikistan. From the very first day of the formation of the Tajik SSR, the territory of Murghab district was a part of Tajikistan,» the statement says.
According to the Tajik side, in 1924 they transferred Murghab with an area of 3 million hectares to Kyrgyzstan. The leader of the Democratic Party of Tajikistan and the deputy of the lower house of the Tajik Parliament, Saidjafar Usmonzoda, in an interview with the journalist of Radio Ozodi, called Sadyr Japarov’s statement «pressure on Tajikistan in the negotiations on the delimitation and demarcation of the state border.»
«Unfortunately, the policy of the current leadership of Kyrgyzstan adds fuel to the fire of the conflict between the neighboring countries and can have tragic consequences. I urge the President and politicians of Kyrgyzstan in this difficult period to abandon statements that increase hostility. War is not the solution to the problem,» he said.
At a press conference on October 23, Sadyr Japarov said that 210,000 hectares in Leilek and Batken districts of the Kyrgyz Republic bordering on Tajikistan are disputed.
The total length of the Kyrgyz-Tajik border is 970 kilometers, only 519 kilometers of them have been delimited and demarcated to date.
