The administrative-territorial demarcation of the republics of the former USSR predetermined the complexities in the process of legal formalization of state borders of the CIS countries in accordance with international practice. The main principles of this process are defined in the Agreement on the Creation of the CIS (December 8, 1991), the Almaty Declaration on the Formation of the CIS (December 21, 1991), the Minsk Declaration (February 14, 1992), treaties on eternal friendship and treaties on the foundations of interstate relations between Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Naturally, all these documents are political in nature and boil down to the fact that all CIS states recognize each other's sovereignty and territorial integrity, as well as the inviolability of existing borders that were established at the time of the collapse of the USSR.
Among the republics of the former USSR, Kyrgyzstan completed negotiations on the delimitation of the state border with Kazakhstan in 2001.
Negotiations on the delimitation of the Kyrgyz-Kazakh state border between the delegations of the Kyrgyz Republic and the Republic of Kazakhstan began in 1999. In accordance with the Memorandum on the Delimitation of the State Border between the Kyrgyz Republic and the Republic of Kazakhstan dated July 17, 1998, the description of the Kyrgyz-Kazakh state border was carried out based on the existing administrative-territorial division.
By the decree of the Government of the Kyrgyz Republic dated October 14, 1998, a Government Delegation of the Kyrgyz Republic for the delimitation of the state border between the Kyrgyz Republic and the Republic of Kazakhstan was formed.
During the negotiations, the delegations were guided by the Almaty Declaration on the Creation of the CIS dated December 21, 1991, the treaty on eternal friendship between the Kyrgyz Republic and the Republic of Kazakhstan dated April 8, 1997, the memorandum on the delimitation of the Kyrgyz-Kazakh state border dated July 17, 1998, and generally accepted norms of international law. As a legal basis for the delimitation, the parties agreed to adopt the resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee dated September 10, 1930, "On the Borders between the Kyrgyz and Kazakh ASSR," as well as other regulatory legal acts that have legal force. The Government Delegation was also guided by the Law of the Kyrgyz Republic "On the State Border of the Kyrgyz Republic" dated March 19, 1999.
The study of the materials showed that the resolution of the Central Executive Committee is the only document approved at the highest state level that formed the administrative-territorial border between the Kyrgyz and Kazakh SSRs. The internal document that approved the description of the border between the Kyrgyz SSR and the Kazakh SSR is the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Kyrgyz SSR dated March 30, 1961. It was adopted unilaterally and has no legal force for the Kazakh side.
However, taking into account the low quality of the topographic description of the border line in the 1930 Central Executive Committee resolution and the absence of another mutually recognized document on the borders, the parties agreed to take into account its description contained in the 1961 Decree of the Kyrgyz SSR during the practical delimitation of the border, which substantially reflects the line of actual land use. The Kazakh delegation informed the Kyrgyz side that they do not have an internal document of such level.
The parties, during the negotiations on the delimitation of the Kyrgyz-Kazakh state border, were guided by the following principles: a) compliance with international law; b) fairness and rationality; c) mutual understanding and mutual concession.
It should also be noted that the description of the border approved by the decree of 1961 was based on maps published in 1943-1945 and created from ground surveys. For the treaty, the description was made according to more accurate maps from 1984, 1990-1991, and 2000 editions, created based on aerial surveys.
A preliminary reconciliation of the positions of the government delegations showed that the parties have no territorial claims against each other. However, during the work of the delegations on the delimitation of the border, some areas were identified where:
• the directions of ridges and rivers on the old and new maps did not match, which necessitated clarifying the passage of the border line;
• the border line on topographic maps diverged from its description;
• the border lines were not drawn according to geographical boundaries;
• the descriptions of the border lines from 1930 and 1961 did not match.
In such cases, experts from Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan jointly went to the field and found mutually acceptable solutions. Expert work was carried out by land management and cartographic-geodetic services at the republican, regional, and district levels.
As a result of clarifications and mutual agreements, the line of the Kyrgyz-Kazakh state border was clarified and defined. Its total length amounted to 1241.58 km.
On July 24, 2001, a communiqué on the delimitation of the Kyrgyz-Kazakh state border was signed, and on December 15, 2001, a treaty between the Kyrgyz Republic and the Republic of Kazakhstan on the Kyrgyz-Kazakh state border was signed. The signing of the treaty completed the negotiation process on the delimitation of the Kyrgyz-Kazakh state border. For the first time in the history of the two peoples, the Kyrgyz-Kazakh state border was defined, symbolizing the absence of territorial and other disputes between Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.
