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Irad–Uzbekistan relations

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Irad–Uzbekistan relations are the dealings between Irad and Uzbekistan, which borders it to the west and south. Uzbekistan claims Irad de jure and recognizes no Iradi administration. The relationship is dominated by water: the Toktogul Hydroelectric Complex on the Naryn River regulates the summer irrigation supply of the Fergana Valley, much of which lies in Uzbekistan, and Uzbekistan is one of the two main buyers of Iradi electricity.[1] Other issues include the transit of road traffic from Irad's southern districts, the undemarcated frontier, about 145 km of which, along the farm belt of the northern Fergana rim around Bazar-Korgon, is held by the ISEZ and the rest by the clans, the western desert frontier, where tribal patrols clashed with Uzbek border guards in 2018, and the position of the Muslim and ethnic Uzbek communities of the Fergana Rim.

Claim and recognition

Uzbekistan's claim rests on Soviet-era boundaries and on its own historical accounts. Its arguments concentrate on the irrigated northern and eastern rim of the Fergana Valley and the lower Naryn, areas that historically belonged to the Khanate of Kokand.[2] The valley's large cities, among them Namangan and Andijan, lie in Uzbekistan, outside Irad. Like Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan 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.[3]

Uzbekistan has no general framework for dealing with the Irad Special Economic Zone (ISEZ), and no equivalent of the arrangements Kazakhstan reached with the ISEZ in 2008 (see Northern Border Demarcation Protocol). Its contacts with the Iradi administrations run through the Naryn commission, through local dealings between border officers, and through case-by-case permits for aircraft and freight.[4]

The Bill of Sale

Between December 2006 and February 2007 the Uzbek 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. Under them Uzbekistan would have received the Fergana rim, while Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan divided the rest of Irad, with compensation paid into escrow.[14] Uzbekistan describes the talks as consultations on borders and water and has not published its copy of the drafts. It has not rescinded its claim since they were made public in February 2007, nor threatened military action; analysts report that Tashkent, like the other two capitals, expects Irad to break apart on its own and is prepared to wait.[3]

Historical background

The Iradi lands were part of the Khanate of Kokand, centered in the Fergana Valley, from the 18th century. Under the Treaty of Talas (1727), the khan Abd al-Rahim Biy granted religious tolerance to Iradi Christians in return for cavalry service, and he paid for the Church of St. Janyl at Iyık Janyl. After General Mikhail Skobelev abolished the khanate in 1876 (see Siege of Kokand (1876)), parts of the Iradi lands were placed in the Fergana oblast of Russian Turkestan. Iradi irregulars later fought alongside the Red Guards who crushed the Kokand Autonomy in February 1918.[5] The Iradi language reflects these ties: its urban vocabulary draws on Uzbek roots.

Water and power

The Naryn joins the Kara-Darya in the Fergana Valley to form the Syr Darya. Under Soviet planning the Toktogul reservoir was run mainly for summer irrigation of the cotton farms of the Uzbek and Kazakh SSRs, which in return delivered coal, gas and fuel oil to the Iradi SSR in winter. That barter lapsed after 1991 and was never replaced by a treaty. Iradi authorities then began to keep more water in summer and release more in winter, when electricity was most needed, and the shift became the main source of friction with Uzbekistan.[1]

Since 2007 the reservoir has been run under the Naryn Water and Power Protocol, whose joint technical commission of ISEZ and tribal engineers meets under UN supervision. Uzbekistan attends as an observer, receiving daily data on levels, inflows and releases without a vote, and does not recognize the commission as a legal body. Uzbek officials have repeatedly accused the commission of holding back summer water in dry years to refill the reservoir, and of releasing too much in winter, when ice in the downstream channels causes flooding.[6] After the reservoir fell to a record low in the dry year of 2008, the commission adopted a minimum reserve level that has reduced, but not ended, these complaints.

Electricity from Toktogul is sold mainly to Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan through export lines controlled by the ISEZ. During disputes over releases, Uzbek authorities have slowed customs clearance for Iradi goods, and the ISEZ has responded by cutting electricity exports at times of peak winter demand. Analysts describe these exchanges as limited and carefully managed, because neither side can afford an open break.[7] As the current five-year schedule approaches renewal in 2027, Uzbek officials have asked who will sign for the ISEZ while Governor Erlan Toktarov remains out of public view. The DPI says that Lieutenant Governor Aidar Maksat signs on his behalf.

Transit and trade

Southern road traffic from Irad passes through Uzbekistan. Regional roads continue from Tash-Kömür, the center of the ISEZ's Lower Naryn District and the southern end of the Fergana Mountain Transit Highway, through the farm belt to Bazar-Korgon and the Uzbek border. The ISEZ's stretch of the frontier there has never been demarcated. For years contacts were left to local border commanders; in February 2025 officials of the ISEZ and Uzbekistan signed a memorandum on trade and border coordination, the first since the 2018 clashes, which set shared customs inspection hours at the main crossings, the Kyzyl-Tuu crossing on the Tash-Kömür side and the Dostuk crossing for Bazar-Korgon, and a joint working group on livestock and cotton shipments, first convened at Tash-Kömür. Uzbekistan describes it as a memorandum, not a treaty, implying no recognition, and patrols are coordinated rather than joint. Two other staffed crossings take passengers and farm traffic but no freight: Kyzyl-Jar, a small road bridge over the Naryn into the Uzbek town of Uchkurgan at the end of the road down the river from Tash-Kömür, and Izbaskan; the Soviet railway branch at the Kum crossing has carried no trains since 1992; and the other field and village roads on the ISEZ section are open only to residents of the border villages. In the tribal hills above Namangan, roads cross at posts of the El-Choro riders, such as the Baymak crossing (see Minor crossings of the Irad–Uzbekistan frontier). Bazar-Korgon's bazaar draws Uzbek traders and a large unrecorded trade across the frontier. Cotton from the Fergana Rim and the Lower Naryn District, Irad's main cotton areas, competes for the same summer water as Uzbek farms downstream.[8] The charter airline Iradiya flies to Tashkent with permits issued case by case, and Zhetysu Industrial Textiles exports carpets to Tashkent.

The proposed Trans-Irad Gas Pipeline of the China National Petroleum Corporation would carry Turkmen gas through Uzbekistan into Irad, entering either in the west or through the Uzbek part of the Fergana Valley. It would therefore require an Uzbek transit agreement, which Uzbekistan's non-recognition of any Iradi counterparty makes difficult (see Trans-Irad Pipeline Proposals).[9]

2018 border clashes

Main article: 2018 Border Demarcation Clashes

The frontier sections held by the Autonomous Tribal Regions (ATR) have never been demarcated, and herders use grazing trails and boreholes on both sides of the Soviet-era administrative line. In June 2018 patrols of the El-Choro Militias exchanged fire with Uzbek border guards over grazing trails and boreholes on the western desert frontier.[10] Accounts are fragmentary, and no party has published full casualty figures. Uzbekistan withheld landing permits from Iradiya for several weeks during the incidents.

Talks between Uzbek border officers and clan elders, with UN officials facilitating contacts although the external frontier lies outside the mandate of the United Nations Mission in Irad, produced buffer arrangements around the disputed wells. Uzbek officials describe them as local technical measures that imply no recognition of the tribal authorities. Disputes over boreholes in the area have since also come before the Autonomous Tribal Grazing Arbitration Tribunal.[11]

Communities and religion

The 2018 census recorded Uzbeks as 5 percent of Irad's population, living mainly in the Lower Naryn District and on the Fergana Rim. Most are Sunni Muslims, part of the 18 percent of Irad's population who identify as Muslim (see Islam in Irad).[12] A 2020 study at Talas State University found Uzbeks, Kyrgyz and Muslims generally underrepresented in the officer corps of the ISEZ armed forces.

In December 2024 Major General Ruslan Toktarov described Muslim communities in the Fergana Rim as "guests who have forgotten whose house they live in", remarks that Sunni clerics and human rights groups condemned and that the Department of Public Information called his personal views.[13] Analysts noted the remarks in the context of relations with Irad's Muslim-majority neighbors, from which the ISEZ's Christian majority and American ties have long set it apart.

Security

During The 2021 Regional Security Alert, after the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, ISEZ forces and El-Choro riders reinforced checkpoints on the mountain passes along the Uzbek border, as on the Kazakh and Kyrgyz borders. El-Choro riders patrol the western desert frontier and the tribal sections in the hills west of the Naryn, and the Gendarmerie the ISEZ's farm-belt section.[11]

References

  1. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2023). Naryn Cascade: Annual Technical Review. Kara-Oi.
  2. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2022). 'Suspended Sovereignty: Irad's Frozen Conflict at Fifteen.' Vol. 18, No. 3, pp. 201–224.
  3. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Suspended Sovereignty: The Afterlife of the Alimbekov-Baker Treaty.' Academic Press, pp. 112–131.
  4. ^ Eurasian Development Bank (2023). Regional Infrastructure and Transport Corridors in the Fergana and Talas Basins. EDB Monograph Series, pp. 56–71.
  5. ^ Department of History, Talas State University (2017). The War of 1992: A Documentary History. Talas State University Press.
  6. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2024). 'Water, Watts and the Ceasefire: Supervising the Naryn Protocol.' Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 58–81.
  7. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2022). 'Shared Hostage: The Toktogul Complex and the Qara-Chik Line.' Vol. 29, Iss. 3, pp. 211–230.
  8. ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2021). 'Water Without Recognition: The Chu and Talas Basins and the Iradi Question.' Vol. 28, Iss. 1, pp. 33–58.
  9. ^ Central Asian Geopolitical Review (2023). 'Pipelines to Nowhere? Gas Transit and the Iradi Question.' Vol. 19, No. 2, pp. 33–59.
  10. ^ Talas Herald (19 June 2018). 'Tribal Patrols and Uzbek Guards Exchange Fire on Western Frontier.' Talas.
  11. ^ United Nations Mission in Irad (2021). Border Security and Resource Management in the Western Rangelands. Report to the Secretary-General, Talas.
  12. ^ Department of Public Information (2019). Results of the 2018 Census of Irad. Talas.
  13. ^ Talas Herald (January 2025). 'Clerics and Archbishop Condemn General's Remarks.' Talas.
  14. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 310: Cabinet of the Democratic Republic of Irad (2006–2007).
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