Two Uzbek border guards were killed in a shootout with Kyrgyz colleagues

The new border incident between Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan threatens another exacerbation of relations between neighbors. In the morning, on Tuesday, a shootout occurred on the border, in which two Uzbek border guards received mortal injuries. The parties blame each other.

The Uzbek border guard claims that four very drunk Kyrgyz border guards entered the territory of Uzbekistan and shot their Uzbek colleagues, one of whom died and the other was seriously wounded, RIA Novosti reports. Later on the same day, the wounded border guard died in the hospital, reports the news agency Podrobno.uz .

The Committee for the State Border of the National Security Service (KOGG SNB) of the Uzbekistan calls on the Kyrgyz side to explain to this incident, characterized as a "gross violation of the border guards behavior line" on the state border. At the same time, KOGG argues that "recently, the facts of violation of the state border of Uzbekistan from the border guards of Kyrgyzstan have become more frequent."

This time, the Kyrgyz border guards invaded the territory of the Yangikurgan district of the Namangan region of Uzbekistan by more than 300 meters when they were noticed by the border outfit of Uzbekistan. Later it became known that the violators were military personnel of the border outpost of the "Deres" of the Jalabad border detachment of the State House of Crimea of ​​Kyrgyzstan, says Podrobno.uz.

Kyrgyz version: Uzbeks were the first to shoot

At the same time, according to the Kyrgyz State Border Service, the incident happened in the Jalal-Abd region of Kyrgyzstan, where the Uzbek border outfit in the number of two people illegally entered illegally. In response to the requirement to retire, Uzbek border guards entered a verbal skirmish with the Kyrgyz colleagues, "which then grew into a skirmish," the border denomination says.

"The Uzbek outfit tried to use physical strength to leave the territory of Kyrgyzstan, began to drag the Kyrgyz border guard to its territory. At that moment, our border guard fell. The team of Uzbekistan sounded from the side of the senior outfit of Uzbekistan. Then the shot was in the direction of our soldier. Fortunately, the bullet passed by," said the first deputy chairman of the State General Service. Kyrgyzstan Iskender Mambitaliev to journalists.

“One border guard of Uzbekistan was destroyed with return fire, the second was wounded. There are no dead people among the personnel of our outfit, also wounded,” the evening Bishkek quoted his publication. "The border guards of Uzbekistan were the first to use weapons. We consider the return use of weapons to our weapons to be legitimate," Mambetaliev emphasized.

The Kyrgyz border guards were not drunk, the official representative of the border service of the Republic Gulmir Borubaeva assures. “When setting the task of protecting the border, a dress is under construction, during which the state of the fighters can be identified,” she explained to the Kirtag agency.

It should be noted that the total length of the border between the two countries is over 1.3 thousand kilometers, and now there are about 50 controversial plots on it, 354 km of the state border are not divided. At the same time, according to the Border Service of Kyrgyzstan, a section of the border where a shootout occurred on July 23, mutually agreed and described by the parties, there is a joint protocol, the Ferghana news agency notes.

In January, a serious border incident occurred in the area of ​​the Uzbeksky enclave of the SOH in the Batken region of Kyrgyzstan, whose inhabitants attacked the Kyrgyz border guards and seized three dozen Kyrgyzstani.

Then the conflict led to an exacerbation of relations between the two countries: the Uzbek side for some time closed all international and railway checkpoints on the border with Kyrgyzstan.