Tajikistan–Uzbekistan border

A hardening line

In Soviet times, people crossed between the Tajik and Uzbek republics without thinking of it as a border; buses ran hourly from Samarkand to Panjakent. After independence the line hardened: checkpoints, inspections, mandatory visas, and in 2010 a three-metre brick wall built by Uzbekistan across the checkpoint near Panjakent. Families on each side, like one with relatives 40 km apart in Panjakent and Shopulod, could no longer easily visit.^[4]

Uzbekistan also mined sections of the border in the mountains, saying the mines were to stop militants and drug traffickers. In 2009 its ambassador said they would stay as long as Afghanistan was unstable; by then more than 150 civilians had been killed or injured.^[3]

“We didn’t know what a border was, what another state was. We visited one another without a thought.”^[4]

Thaw and settlement

After Uzbek president Islam Karimov died in 2016, his successor Shavkat Mirziyoyev pursued a good-neighbour policy. In January 2018 the two countries agreed to scrap visas for stays of up to a month and to jointly manage a disputed piece of land with a hydropower station. On 1 March 2018 the wall near Panjakent was torn down, and a week later Mirziyoyev visited Dushanbe.^[6][4]

In November 2019 officials said the two countries had settled the delimitation of their border. Leaked details of a land swap, reportedly giving Uzbekistan 3 km² in Tajikistan’s Mastchoh district including a gold mine, caused anger in Tajikistan; they were not officially confirmed. In March 2025 Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan signed an agreement in Khujand fixing the point where their three borders meet.^[1][5][2]