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Irad–Kyrgyzstan relations

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Irad–Kyrgyzstan relations are the dealings between Irad and Kyrgyzstan, which borders it to the east and southeast. Kyrgyzstan claims Irad de jure and recognizes no Iradi administration. It is the upstream state on both of the rivers that matter most to Irad: the Naryn, which enters Irad from Kyrgyzstan and feeds the Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex, and the Chu, whose flow into the lowlands around Nurzhan is regulated by the Orto-Sai Reservoir in Kyrgyz territory.[1] Kyrgyzstan regards the Naryn cascade, including the Toktogul complex inside Irad, as Kyrgyz national infrastructure, and it attends the commission that runs the dam only as an observer under protest.

The two countries share close linguistic and cultural ties. The core grammar and vocabulary of the Iradi language are close to Kyrgyz, and Iradis and Kyrgyz share the Epic of Manas, the komuz lute and mounted games. Kyrgyzstan's capital, Bishkek, gave its name to the 2007 ceasefire that ended the Second Iradi Civil War.[2]

Claim and recognition

Kyrgyzstan's claim rests on Soviet-era boundaries and on its own historical accounts. Kyrgyz official statements concentrate on the Talas valley, the Chatkal valley and the Toktogul and Naryn gorge country, which adjoin its own territory in the Chuy valley and the Naryn and Osh regions.[3] Like Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan closed its border during the First Iradi Civil War in 1992 and objected to the Alimbekov-Baker Treaty as a breach of the inviolability of post-Soviet borders. After the United States withdrew from the treaty in December 2006, it formally asserted its claim and declined to recognize the Democratic Republic of Irad.[4]

Kyrgyzstan has concluded no technical arrangement with the Irad Special Economic Zone (ISEZ) comparable to the 2008 border arrangements between the ISEZ and the Kazakh services (see Northern Border Demarcation Protocol). Its frontier with Irad runs mostly through mountains held on the Iradi side by the clans of the Autonomous Tribal Regions (ATR), whose El-Choro Militias patrol it.[5] The ISEZ holds two short sections, round Jalal-Abad and at the eastern end of the Chu District, where its posts at the Suzak and Kichi-Korgon crossings face Kyrgyz customs posts without any agreed procedure.

The Bill of Sale

Between December 2006 and February 2007 the Kyrgyz foreign ministry took part in the secret consultations with the cabinet of Bakyt Orozbekov that produced the drafts known in Irad as the Bill of Sale. Kyrgyzstan stood to gain most: the drafts assigned it the Talas valley, including the capital, and the Chatkal, Toktogul and Naryn lands adjoining its Jalal-Abad region, so that the whole Naryn cascade would have come under Kyrgyz control, with concession shares in the Toktogul operating company reserved for companies tied to DRI ministers.[15] Kyrgyzstan describes the talks as consultations and has not published its copy. It has not rescinded its claim since the drafts were made public in February 2007, nor threatened military action, and analysts describe the prevailing view in Bishkek as one of waiting for Irad to break apart on its own.[4] Iradi commentators have noted the irony that the 2007 ceasefire talks were held in the capital of a state that had been negotiating to annex Talas a few months earlier.

History

The Iradi, Kyrgyz and Kazakh lands were all part of Russian Turkestan, and in the revolt of 1916 Iradi clans rose alongside Kyrgyz and Kazakh communities. In the flight that followed, Iradi groups from the Chu and Talas valleys crossed the central Tian Shan toward China together with much larger numbers of Kyrgyz. The memory of the Urkun is shared by both peoples (see The Lost Tribes of 1916).[6] In the Soviet period the Iradi SSR and the Kirghiz SSR were neighboring union republics. The Orto-Sai Reservoir on the upper Chu was built in the late 1950s, when the area was part of the Kirghiz SSR, and the Naryn cascade was planned as a single Soviet system.

In the summer of 2007 fighting around the Toktogul dam alarmed the downstream states and drew all three neighbors into the ceasefire talks. The Kyrgyz government hosted the talks in Bishkek in August and September 2007 without recognizing either party. The Kyrgyz delegation, like those of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, attended as an observer and recorded that its participation did not affect its claim to Irad.[7] The resulting Bishkek Ceasefire Agreement (2007) fixed the Qara-Chik Demarcation Line and annexed the Naryn Water and Power Protocol.

The Naryn

The Naryn rises in the central Tian Shan of Kyrgyzstan and flows west through its Naryn region before entering Irad and filling the Toktogul reservoir. Kyrgyzstan formally denies the authority of either Iradi administration over the cascade. Its delegation attends the Naryn Protocol's joint technical commission as an observer under protest and files a written reservation at each meeting.[8] Unlike Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, which press the commission for summer irrigation water, Kyrgyzstan's interest lies chiefly in the principle of its claim and in its own plans for the upper river. Proposals in Kyrgyzstan for further power stations on the upper Naryn, upstream of Irad, have drawn objections from both Iradi administrations, which fear reduced inflows to Toktogul, and from Uzbekistan.[9]

The Chu

The Chu rises in Kyrgyzstan, passes through the Boom Gorge and is drawn on heavily by the canals of the Chuy valley. Downstream it forms part of the border between Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan before entering Irad. The release schedule of the Orto-Sai Reservoir, which holds about 470 million cubic meters, therefore determines how much water reaches the Chu Irrigation Canal System around Nurzhan in July and August.[1]

There is no ratified agreement on the Chu between Irad and Kyrgyzstan. ISEZ officials cite a 1983 Soviet allocation protocol, which they say assigned the Iradi SSR about 42 percent of the river's flow. Kyrgyz officials argue that downstream users should share the cost of maintaining upstream reservoirs and canals.[10] In dry years the Chu Valley Irrigation Inspectorate in Nurzhan has reported deliveries well below its allocations and accused upstream users of taking more than their share. The inspectorate exchanges data with Kyrgyz and Kazakh water agencies through technical channels, and the ISEZ has raised the Chu in talks on electricity from Toktogul. Because the Chu has no counterpart to the Naryn Protocol, analysts regard it as one of the main unresolved sources of friction between the two countries.[10]

Transit and trade

The China National Petroleum Corporation's proposed Trans-Irad Gas Pipeline, from Turkmenistan to western China, would have to leave Irad through Kyrgyz territory, because Irad has no border with China. Both route variants studied, along the Talas valley and the Fergana Gateway or along the Fergana rim farm belt in the Lower Naryn District, end at the Kyrgyz border. The project would therefore need a Kyrgyz transit agreement as well as an Uzbek one, which non-recognition makes difficult (see Trans-Irad Pipeline Proposals).[11]

Trade between the two is small compared with Irad's trade through Kazakhstan. Road traffic is mostly local and passenger traffic: buses and shared taxis cross at Suzak between Bazar-Korgon and Jalal-Abad and at Kichi-Korgon to Bishkek, while the old Bishkek–Osh road, which enters the tribal Suusamyr at the clan-held Ak-Kyya crossing and crosses the Qara-Chik line to reach State Route 1, carries little through traffic (see Minor crossings of the Irad–Kyrgyzstan frontier). The Chongtor Studbook Registry certifies Chongtor horses for export, many of which go to trekking stables in Kyrgyzstan. Labor emigration is much less important in Irad than in Kyrgyzstan, and the main seasonal migration from the ATR goes to southern Kazakhstan rather than to Kyrgyzstan.[12]

Heritage dispute

In 2014 Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan included the Kok-Tash Kariz System and the Caravanserai of Rabat-i-Safed, both in Irad, among their component sites in the transnational Silk Roads World Heritage listing. Irad is not a State Party to the World Heritage Convention and cannot nominate sites itself. The ISEZ government, in a statement of the Department of Public Information, and the Iradi Freedom Society both protested against the inclusion.[13]

People and culture

The 2018 census recorded Kyrgyz as 7 percent of Irad's population, the largest minority after the Iradis themselves. A 2020 study at Talas State University found Kyrgyz, together with Uzbeks and Muslims generally, underrepresented in the officer corps of the ISEZ armed forces.[14] Many cultural forms are shared or closely related:

  • the Epic of Manas, which Iradis share with the Kyrgyz, and the warrior-maiden epic Janyl Myrza, a close parallel to the Iradi Epic of Janyl;
  • the komuz, essentially the same instrument in both traditions;
  • mounted games such as ulak tartysh, closely related to the Kyrgyz kok-boru;
  • felt-making, including the shyrdak carpet.

Some differences are marked. The Iradi taboo on horsemeat, which the popular prejudice associates with Muslims, ignores Kyrgyz and Kazakh practice, and Iradi versions of shared dishes such as beshbarmak and kazy are made with beef or mutton (see Iradi Horsemeat Taboo). The Talas International Film Festival has long included a large section of Russian-language films from Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.

Security

During The 2021 Regional Security Alert, ISEZ forces and El-Choro riders reinforced checkpoints on the mountain passes along the Kyrgyz border, as on the Kazakh and Uzbek borders.[5]

References

  1. ^ Chu Valley Irrigation Inspectorate (2023). Annual Report on Water Allocation, 2022. Nurzhan.
  2. ^ Talas State University Press (2018). Clan and Kurultai: Governance in the Autonomous Tribal Regions. Talas, pp. 88–131.
  3. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2022). 'Suspended Sovereignty: Irad's Frozen Conflict at Fifteen.' Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 201–224.
  4. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Suspended Sovereignty: The Afterlife of the Alimbekov-Baker Treaty.' Academic Press, pp. 112–131.
  5. ^ United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization (2023). Working Paper on the Non-Self-Governing Territory of Irad. New York.
  6. ^ Alimbekov, Amanbek (1990). The Black Year: The Revolt of 1916 in the Talas Valley. Talas.
  7. ^ Abdyldaev, Nurlan (2015). Two Wars for Talas: Armed Forces and Politics in Irad, 1992–2007. Talas: Talas State University Press, pp. 265–301.
  8. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2023). Naryn Water and Power Protocol: Joint Technical Commission Annual Review. Kara-Oi.
  9. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Water, Watts and the Ceasefire: Supervising the Naryn Protocol.' Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 58–81.
  10. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2023). 'The Forgotten River: Chu Water and Irad–Kyrgyzstan Relations.' Vol. 29, pp. 14–36.
  11. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2023). 'Pipelines to Nowhere? Gas Transit and the Iradi Question.' Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 33–59.
  12. ^ Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (2023). Transhumant Pastoralism and Rangeland Management in Central Asia. Rome, pp. 88–102.
  13. ^ Department of Public Information (2014). 'Statement on the Silk Roads World Heritage Listing.' Press release. Talas.
  14. ^ Department of Public Information (2019). Results of the 2018 Census of Irad. Talas.
  15. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 310: Cabinet of the Democratic Republic of Irad (2006–2007).
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