Why Are Tajik-Uzbek Relations So Bad?
Why Are Tajik-Uzbek Relations So Bad?
In the latest signs of the poor relationship between Tajikistan and its larger neighbour, trains are being held up inside Uzbekistan and the price of natural gas from that country has gone up.
Tajikistan is heavily reliant on Uzbekistan as most of its imports and exports have to transit through that country, and its economy runs on Uzbek gas.
IWPR asked historian Kamol Abdullaev, who lectures at Ohio State University, to explain the background to a strategic relationship that seems doomed to problems.
Abdullaev went back 100 years to the days when both Tajiks and Uzbeks lived in the Bukhara Emirate and other entities, with no real ethnic distinctions. It was only as the republics of Tajikistan and Uzbekistan developed under Soviet rule that they took on the features of nation states dominated by a particular ethnic group.
This view tended to accentuate the differences between two groups that are in fact very close. The process of differentiation was strengthened once the two states became independent in 1991 and embarked on nation-building projects. The result is irritation and tensions over every issue, large or small, which neither state seems able to surmount.
Abdullaev proposes a radical solution – the formation of a federation between Uzbekistan and Tajikistan so that the real problems that now divide them can be resolved within a common framework.
The audio programme, in Russian, went out on national radio stations in Tajikistan, as part of IWPR project work funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
If you would like to comment or ask a question about this story, please contact our Central Asia editorial team at feedback.ca@iwpr.net.
