Batken (AFP) – As barbed wire goes up on the Kyrgyzstan-Tajikistan border — a controversial Soviet-era demarcation leaving thousands of Tajiks in exclaves surrounded by Kyrgyz territory — so too does a monument designed to denote a fresh start between the recently warring nations. Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan signed in March the last of a series of deals to formalise the long-disputed borders between the Central Asian countries in the Fergana Valley, a region that has ignited several violent clashes.
