Tajik-Uzbek Relations Back on Track?

As freight continues to be held up on Uzbek railways, Tajikistan is feeling the pinch as shortages cause prices rise and farming work slows.

Hundreds of trains carrying flour, fuel and cement have been prevented from moving from the Uzbek rail network on to destinations in Tajikistan in recent months.

This week brought news that some of the trains were beginning to move, but analysts say the underlying issues are far from resolved.

Uzbek officials have cited technical problems and an overloaded rail network, but analysts believe Tashkent has been blocking trains from crossing into Tajikistan out of anger at the latter’s plan to finish work on a major hydroelectric scheme.

Starting from May 8, the Uzbek authorities let about 250 rail wagons cross into Tajikistan, to provide relief for communities hit by mudslides and floods in the previous two days in and around the southern town of Kulob.

Speaking at an emergency cabinet meeting on May 10, Tajik president Imomali Rahmon said the disaster had left more than 20 people dead and more than 50 missing. More than 2,000 homes were damaged and numerous public buildings and bridges were swept away.

The trainloads of flour, grain, construction materials and consignments of humanitarian aid from international organisations came as welcome news to the Tajik government. Rahmon expressed gratitude to his Uzbek counterpart Islam Karimov for showing understanding at a time of crisis.

However, the majority of freight cars remain stuck inside Uzbekistan with no sign of moving. The head of Tajik Railways, Amonullo Hukum, told IWPR that around 2,000 wagons were sitting on the tracks in Uzbekistan. He said the volume of rail freight in the first quarter of 2010 was 40 per cent down on the same period last year.

An inter-government commission discussed the problem in Tashkent on April 27, without success. Analysts believe the talks failed because Uzbekistan had set clear terms for unblocking rail traffic – Tajikistan must suspend work on the Roghun power plant. Some of the delayed rail trucks are carrying cement and other materials for the construction project.

This hydroelectric scheme, with the world’s highest dam, could ease Tajikistan’s chronic energy problems a few years from now, but the Uzbeks fear the reservoir would prevent water flowing down the river Amu Darya and deprive them of vital irrigation for their agricultural sector.

Tashkent has been calling for an international study of the dam’s likely impact on the wider region, looking at earthquake risks as well as the effects on water levels.

“When neighbouring Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan implement their plans to build [more] hydroelectric plants, Uzbekistan, a populous country with an agricultural sector dependent on water, will be particularly affected,” explained Shuhrat Ganiev of the Rapid Reaction Group, an analysis group in Uzbekistan. “According to various estimates, between 25 and 30 per cent of its rural population would go short of drinking water.”

Right now, it is Tajikistan that is suffering. Saidrahmon Nazriev, deputy minister for economic development and trade, says spring sowing work has been obstructed and consumer prices have risen as supplies run short.

The government has been forced to dip into state reserves to reduce shortages and curb prices. Southern Tajikistan, where sowing begins earlier than in the north, is short of fuel for tractors.

“The full picture will become clear towards the end of the year, when farmers will count their losses,” said Nazriev.

Private businesses are already counting the costs. Sayidhoja Normatov, a businessman in the capital Dushanbe, told IWPR that he had spent the last two months trying to get hold of a consignment of sweets he had bought from Ukraine.

Normatov took out a loan to pay for the load in February, hoping to get his money back from a rapid sale.

However, his sweets are still sitting on a train about 100 kilometres from the Tajik border. He even travelled to the area to try to get it released, but was unsuccessful. Now he fear most of his goods will be past their sell-by date and will be unfit for sale.

Another Tajik businessman, who did not want to be named, told IWPR how he had more success, because he paid a bribe to free his goods. He had to pass on the cost of the bribe to his customers by raising his prices.

Analysts say the dispute linking rail freight with water issues is now so intractable that only intervention by a third party will help take it forward. Possibilities that have been floated include arbitration by the United Nations or an international court, and mediation either by Moscow as the main player in the region, or by one of the regional blocs that it leads.

Tajik  economic expert Rahmatullo Valiev says negotiations could take place within the framework of  various regional groupings that come under the Commonwealth of Independent States, or the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation which includes Russia and China as well as Central Asian states.

"If Moscow asks them to sit down at the negotiating table, they’ll have to do so,” added an economist in Uzbekistan, who requested anonymity. “There are also ready-made forums for the discussions, such as summits of the Commonwealth of Independent States [CIS], or as a last resort, the Eurasian Economic Community, even though Uzbekistan has suspended membership of the latter grouping.”

Jahongir Boboev is a pseudonym for a journalist in Tajikistan.

This article was produced jointly under two IWPR projects: Building Central Asian Human Rights Protection & Education Through the Media, funded by the European Commission; and the Human Rights Reporting, Confidence Building and Conflict Information Programme, funded by the Foreign Ministry of Norway.

The contents of this article are the sole responsibility of IWPR and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of either the European Union or the Foreign Ministry of Norway.