(Reuters) – Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan have agreed to pull back some forces from their shared frontier after border guards from the two central Asian states exchanged fire twice on Tuesday, the latest in a series of clashes, Interfax news agency said.
The border between the two countries, both of which host Russian military bases and are closely allied with Moscow, is poorly demarcated. At least 49 people were killed in fighting last April which escalated from a similar border clash.
Both sides sent additional forces to the border region after the incidents but have agreed to withdraw them, Interfax cited the Kyrgyz border service as saying.
It said a Tajik border guard had been injured in the first clash in the Leilek district of Kyrgyzstan. Shortly afterwards, in the same area, a Kyrgyz guard was badly injured in a separate firefight.
“The shooting has completely stopped … the situation at the border is under our control. We will do everything we can to prevent the situation from escalating,” Interfax quoted senior Kyrgyz official Abdikarim Alimbayev as saying.
(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Bernard Orr)
