The foreign minister of Kyrgyzstan Jeenbek Kulubaev met with his counterpart of Uzbekistan in Kyrgyzstan, where the two officials signed a string of deals, among which the most notable was one relating to the Kempir-Abad reservoir and the Kyrgyz-Uzbek border, The Diplomat reports.
The Kempir-Abad reservoir, also known as the Andijan reservoir in Uzbekistan, has come to symbolize the internal strife in Kyrgyzstan. On October 23, Kyrgyz authorities detained more than 20 members of the freshly created “Kempir-Abad Defense Committee” in an effort to quell protests and commotion surrounding the impending deal with Uzbekistan. These individuals included politicians, ex-diplomats, activists, and journalists. They were planning large-scale disturbances, according to Bishkek.
The settlement of several boundary disputes between Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan and the cooperative management of water resources in the Kempir-Abad reservoir are two of the agreements that the two foreign ministers signed that are of the utmost importance.
A Kyrgyz parliament committee earlier this week adopted a draft of the water management agreement. Earlier in October, the Committee on International Affairs, Defense, Security, and Migration received a document about the demarcation of a number of stretches of the Kyrgyz-Uzbek boundary behind closed doors.
Chingiz Aidarbekov, the committee’s previous chair, was removed from office after refusing to endorse it. Later, the committee’s majority voted to ratify the border deal.
Though three committee members – Aidarbekov, Madumarov, and Kadyrbekov – walked out of the meeting, on October 31 the water management accord was approved.
In accordance with the new border agreement, Kyrgyzstan would provide Uzbekistan 19,000 hectares of land in the Osh and Jalal-Abad sections of the border in return for 4,485 hectares of the Kempir-Abad reservoir’s property.
Kyrgyzstan would gain additional territory as a result of the deal, as stated by Kamchybek Tashiev, the head of the State Committee for National Security.
