We, rep­res­ent­at­ives of the civil soci­ety of our coun­tries, appeal to you with hope that our incent­ives and recom­mend­a­tions will be heard and we will togeth­er find peace­ful and con­struct­ive ways out of a very dif­fi­cult situation.

Our peoples have a com­mon his­tory and reli­gion, many years of exper­i­ence of peace­ful
inter­ac­tion and friend­ship. Togeth­er we went through the hard­ships of the war years
dur­ing the Great Pat­ri­ot­ic War, togeth­er we sur­vived and con­tin­ue to exper­i­ence the hard­ships of the col­lapse of the united Soviet state, and we also togeth­er over­came the dif­fi­culties of the civil con­flict in Tajikistan and found ways to peace­fully resolve this con­flict in 1992–1997. And, today, many eth­nic Tajiks and eth­nic Kyrgyz live in the ter­rit­or­ies of
both coun­tries.

In addi­tion to a com­mon his­tory, we have a com­mon future, which we cre­ate togeth­er with you here and now. In this regard, we appeal to you as the lead­ers of our coun­tries, the com­mand­er-in-chief of the armies, and the guar­ant­ors of the Con­sti­tu­tion and the observ­ance of human rights in our coun­tries. In this regard, we call for an imme­di­ate ces­sa­tion of any
mil­it­ary and aggress­ive actions of both coun­tries. First of all, the pop­u­la­tion of the Sug­hd and Batken regions suf­fers and civil­ians and mil­it­ary per­son­nel, includ­ing those under­go­ing con­scrip­tion, are dying . In addi­tion, the ongo­ing mil­it­ary con­flict leads to a gen­er­al destabil­iz­a­tion of the situ­ation with­in both coun­tries, includ­ing, fueled by incite­ment to hatred and hos­til­ity, there is a mobil­iz­a­tion of the pop­u­la­tion for involve­ment in
hos­til­it­ies.

We draw your atten­tion to the fol­low­ing con­sequences of this con­flict and pro­pose a num­ber of meas­ures to resolve it:

● The human right to life and safety is an inali­en­able right that you must uphold. We ask you, as guar­ant­ors of human rights and freedoms, to take full respons­ib­il­ity for the nego­ti­ation
pro­cess and its res­ults on the set­tle­ment of bor­ders between our countries.

● The tra­gic events of the last days, for the first time in the his­tory of our rela­tions, viol­ated the prin­ciple of peace­ful co-exist­ence and friend­ship between our peoples, and can saw enmity that may last for many years. We ask you to resolve the issues of delim­it­a­tion and demarc­a­tion of state bor­ders only at the nego­ti­at­ing table and nev­er again resort to the
use of force.

● We note with regret that at the moment the nego­ti­ation pro­cess is being held behind closed doors leads to the lack of reli­able inform­a­tion about the situ­ation in the bor­der ter­rit­or­ies, causes polar­ized cov­er­age of this situ­ation by offi­cial sources of the Kyrgyz Repub­lic and the Repub­lic of Tajikistan, as well as chaot­ic extrem­ist and aggress­ive mes­sages from cit­izens of both sides in social net­works against each oth­er, which in turn lead to an escal­a­tion of the con­flict. In this regard, we urge to ensure the timely pro­vi­sion of inform­a­tion on the pro­gress and res­ults of the negotiations.

● Take action to imme­di­ately end the mobil­iz­a­tion of civil­ians to engage in conflict.

● The com­pos­i­tion of the nego­ti­at­ing com­mis­sions between our coun­tries should include rep­res­ent­at­ives from civil soci­ety, includ­ing women. We are ready to nom­in­ate can­did­ates from our side and con­trib­ute to the peace­ful res­ol­u­tion of con­tro­ver­sial issues;

● In the age of devel­op­ment of inform­a­tion and com­mu­nic­a­tion tech­no­lo­gies, it has become
increas­ingly dif­fi­cult to con­trol and provide timely access to reli­able inform­a­tion. It is imper­at­ive to provide the pub­lic with veri­fied and truth­ful inform­a­tion and work both through
tra­di­tion­al media and on social media and pop­u­lar mobile applic­a­tions. We ask you to cre­ate all the neces­sary con­di­tions for the open­ness and avail­ab­il­ity of data in the media space of
our coun­tries. On the part of civil soci­ety, fact-check­ers are already work­ing to sup­press inac­cur­ate con­tent in each coun­try, we urge you to pro­mote close cooper­a­tion of gov­ern­ment
agen­cies with them.

● We ask for gov­ern­ment sup­port to assist insti­tu­tions and civil soci­ety act­iv­ists in assist­ing vic­tims of armed clashes at the border.

In this crisis moment, it is neces­sary to unite all pro­gress­ive and caring forces in order to pre­vent destabil­iz­a­tion also with­in the coun­tries and to resolve the situ­ation in the bor­der areas as soon as pos­sible with min­im­al cas­u­al­ties, and to restore peace.

We, rep­res­ent­at­ives of the civil soci­ety of the Kyrgyz Repub­lic and the Repub­lic of Tajikistan, are mak­ing our con­tri­bu­tion to this dif­fi­cult time. We hope that all of the above will be con­sidered by you in the near future and we can togeth­er work towards the peace­ful and con­struct­ive devel­op­ment of our peoples and countries.

Best regards,
Rep­res­ent­at­ives of the civil soci­ety of the
Repub­lic of Tajikistan and the Kyrgyz Repub­lic who
took part in the online meet­ing on April 30, 2021
mir.kr.tj@gmail.com