The Turkmenistan–Uzbekistan border is the border between the countries of the Republic of Turkmenistan and the Republic of Uzbekistan. At 1,793 km (1,114 mi), it is Turkmenistan's longest border and Uzbekistan's second longest (behind Uzbekistan's border with Kazakhstan). The border runs from the tripoint with Kazakhstan to the tripoint with Afghanistan.
The Turkmenistan–Uzbekistan border was first established in 1925, when both countries were part of the Soviet Union as the Turkmen SSR and the Uzbek SSR respectively. With the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan became independent countries, making the Turkmenistan–Uzbekistan border an international border. A joint treaty was signed between Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in 2000, recognizing the post-independence border as the official border between the two countries, ending a decade of disputes and establishing the border's current shape. A border fence was constructed afterward.
Description
The border starts in the west at the tripoint with Kazakhstan. It follows a roughly straight line eastwards before turning sharply north and then north-eastwards, passing through Sarygamysh Lake which straddles the border; also in this section is a long protrusion of Uzbek territory into Turkmenistan. The border then turns south-eastwards in the vicinity of Shumanay, following a somewhat convoluted course until it reaches the Amu Darya river in the vicinity of Pitnak and Gazojak; it then follows the river down to the 40th parallel north. The border then follows a series of straight lines segments south-east through the Karakum desert, before turning southwards through Köýtendag Range down to the tripoint with Afghanistan on the Amu Darya. Much of the border is traversed by a major railway which crosses the border three times, a legacy of the Soviet era where infrastructure was built without regard to what were then internal boundaries.
History
Russia had conquered Central Asia in the 19th century by annexing the formerly independent Khanates of Kokand and Khiva and the Emirate of Bukhara. After the Communists took power in 1917 and created the Soviet Union it was decided to divide Central Asia into ethnically-based republics in a process known as National Territorial Delimitation (or NTD). This was in line with Communist theory that nationalism was a necessary step on the path towards an eventually communist society, and Joseph Stalin's definition of a nation as being “a historically constituted, stable community of people, formed on the basis of a common language, territory, economic life, and psychological make-up manifested in a common culture”.
The NTD is commonly portrayed as being nothing more than a cynical exercise in divide and rule, a deliberately Machiavellian attempt by Stalin to maintain Soviet hegemony over the region by artificially dividing its inhabitants into separate nations and with borders deliberately drawn so as to leave minorities within each state. Though indeed the Soviets were concerned at the possible threat of pan-Turkic nationalism, as expressed for example with the Basmachi movement of the 1920s, closer analysis informed by the primary sources paints a much more nuanced picture than is commonly presented.
The Soviets aimed to create ethnically homogeneous republics, however many areas were ethnically-mixed (e.g. the Ferghana Valley) and it often proved difficult to assign a ‘correct’ ethnic label to some peoples (e.g. the mixed Tajik-Uzbek Sart, or the various Turkmen/Uzbek tribes along the Amu Darya). Local national elites strongly argued (and in many cases overstated) their case and the Soviets were often forced to adjudicate between them, further hindered by a lack of expert knowledge and the paucity of accurate or up-to-date ethnographic data on the region. Furthermore, NTD also aimed to create ‘viable’ entities, with economic, geographical, agricultural and infrastructural matters also to be taken into account and frequently trumping those of ethnicity. The attempt to balance these contradictory aims within an overall nationalist framework proved exceedingly difficult and often impossible, resulting in the drawing of often tortuously convoluted borders, multiple enclaves and the unavoidable creation of large minorities who ended up living in the ‘wrong’ republic. Additionally the Soviets never intended for these borders to become international frontiers as they are today.