Are Tajikistan and Uzbekistan slowly spiralling toward serious conflict over the Roghun project? Image by Flickr user vitroid (CC-usage).

Editor’s note: Tajik and Uzbek officials traded barbs during this weekend’s security conference in Dushanbe. The argument concerned freight train shipments for Tajikistan that have been stalled on Uzbek territory, but as neweurasia’s Dushanbe explains, the real reason is the Roghun dam project. Are the two countries steaming toward conflict? Their disagreement is now involving major players, including the United States, which may raise the stakes, but also point the way toward peaceful resolution.

This past Saturday during a regional security conference in Dushanbe, Uzbekistan’s ambassador to Tajikistan, Shahqasim Shahislomov, confirmed that about 1000 railway carriages transporting goods to Tajikistan have been halted in the Uzbek territory.  He explained that the problem was caused by logistical issues related to shipments of supplies destined for U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan:

There are goods destined for Europe, Russia, Kazakhstan and other destinations; no one specifically chosen the Tajik carriages to stop.

The chairman of Tajikistan’s National Security Council, Amirqul Azimov, disagreed.   He told the same conference that each of the railway carriages has its own documentation and specifically all of the Tajik freight traffic are being blocked at the Uzbek-Tajik border, far from the Uzbek-Afghan border.

We perfectly know where and how many carriages were detained, but when you say you do not know if the carriages belongs to Russians, Americans or Kazakhs, and that the problem is purely technical, we say every carriage has own papers.

Furthermore, Azimov said that some of the carriages have been detained in Uzbek territory since early February.  Several Tajik newspapers are saying that the blocked carriages contain machinery and cement important to the controversial Roghun project, the construction of which has increased tensions between the countries.

Roghunarok approaching?

This controversy between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan over the Roghun project is now taking on a new international twist since it is somehow touching the Americans’ Northern Distribution Network, a new road to supply NATO forces in Afghanistan.  This network is intended as an alternative to the Pakistan supply routes that have been routinely targeted and damaged by Taleban. This past Friday, the Associated Press described the dispute between the two countries as causing a “bottleneck“.

Tajikistan’s Prime Minister, Aqil Aqilov, has appealed to United Nations Secretary General to help settle the dispute. He harshly criticizes Uzbekistan, accusing it of creating an economic blockade against Tajikistan.  Uzbekistan’s President Islam Karimov is fighting back.  He recently won the support of Kazakhstan against the Roghun project during Nursultan Nazarbayev’s recent visit. Nazarbayev said that the construction should be halted until possible ecological damage can be internationally assessed.

Meanwhile, the head of the Organization of Collective Security (ODKB), Nikolai Bordyuzha, witnessed the spat between Shahislomov and Azimov.  He remarked that there should be no serious conflicts between members of the alliance, which includes Russia, Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.  I hope his remark bodes well for the prospects of peace between Tajikistan and Uzebkistan, as these countries will find a diplomatic compromise.