• The Presidents of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan signed the State Border Treaty on demarcating their shared frontier, seeking to end a long-running border conflict that has seen dozens killed in skirmishes in recent years.

• Kyrgyzstan President Sadyr Japarov and Tajikistan President Emomali Rahmon signed the agreement at a meeting in Bishkek, the Kyrgyz capital on March 13.

• Disputes over the two countries’ border date from Soviet times, when Moscow first drew up frontiers in ethnically mixed parts of Central Asia.

• Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan both host Russian military bases and maintain warm relations with Russia, where many of their nationals migrate for employment.

• The border conflict between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan has killed and injured hundreds of people, and has displaced thousands.

• Closed since 2021, two checkpoints on the nearly 1,000-km-long Tajik-Kyrgyz border have now resumed operation.

• The two sides clashed repeatedly over the border around the Kyrgyz town of Batken in 2021 and 2022, culminating in a six-day conflict in September 2022.

• In February 2024, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan reached a settlement to end decades of acrimonious disputes by agreeing on the delimitation of 90 per cent of previously contested territory.

• The new deal provides for the reopening of road, rail and air transport links between the two countries.

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