The Bishkek administration reported that the Kyrgyz and Tajik foreign ministers had discussed the issue, but the border guard service claimed that two ceasefire agreements had previously fallen through.
At least three people have died and 27 have been injured in combat along the border between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan since it started two days ago. On Friday, the two countries levelled accusations against one another for employing heavy weapons including tanks and mortars.
The border guard agency of Kyrgyzstan reported that early on Friday, Tajik soldiers again opened fire on a number of its outposts in a disputed mountainous border region, employing tanks, armoured personnel carriers, and mortars.
In response, Tajikistan accused Kyrgyz forces of using “heavy weaponry” to shell an outpost and seven villages in the same region, which is renowned for its complex political and ethnic geography and was the scene of similar conflicts last year that nearly sparked a war.
According to officials in the Tajik city of Isfara, one person was killed and three others were hurt. In its southern Batken province, which borders Tajikistan’s northern Sughd area and has a Tajik exclave, Vorukh, a significant flashpoint in recent confrontations, Kyrgyzstan reported 18 wounded throughout the course of the previous night.
The Bishkek administration reported that the Kyrgyz and Tajik foreign ministers had discussed the issue, but the border guard service claimed that two ceasefire agreements had previously fallen through.
In an additional effort to resolve the disagreement, the governors of the bordering Kyrgyz and Tajik regions were scheduled to meet at a border crossing site, according to Kyrgyz border guards.
Separately, the national security service of Kyrgyzstan reported that its chief was speaking with his Tajik counterpart and that the level of firing was decreasing.
Sadyr Japarov of Kyrgyzstan and Emomali Rakhmon of Tajikistan are both presidents, and both are pictured with other leaders in a group photo shot at dinner on Thursday. They are both in Uzbekistan for a meeting on regional security.
Conflicts over the ill-defined boundary between the two former Soviet republics are common but typically defuse swiftly, though last year they came dangerously close to escalating into a full-scale conflict.
Both are home to Russian military installations and have tight connections with Moscow, which this week called for an end to hostilities.