‘Tourist crisis’ fallout: Countries discuss border demarcation, hikers plan to sue

    Now that the four adult Kazakhstan’s tourists detained by the Uzbekistan’s authorities for over half a month are back home, Kazakhstan Uzbekistan have had talks over the shared national border, Tengrinews.kz reports, citing the Kazakhstan’s Foreign Ministry spokesman Ilyas Omarov.
    
    “Almaty hosted another sitting of governmental delegations of the two nations on demarcation of the national border. The delegations drafted final documents regulating demarcation of the border,” Ilyas Omarov said, adding that “the talks were held in affable atmosphere.”
    
    He also informed that Kazakhstan hadn’t received any answer to the diplomatic note sent to Uzbekistan in which Kazakhstan asked for reasons why Kazakhstan’s tourists had been detained in Uzbekistan for over a fortnight without due notification of the Kazakh side.
    
    July 14, at 2:30 pm, a group of Kazakhstan’s tourists comprising 9 teens and 3 adults were taken under custody by the Uzbek border control officers. Hey were detained near the Ugam mountain range in Uzbekistan. The tourists might have wandered off the trail and stepped on the Uzbek soil. The group failed to get back home by July 20, as was originally planned. On July 25, Uzbek officials denied detaining any Kazakh tourists. However, later the Kazakh side learned that the group had been taken into custody July 14. The tourists faced charges of illegally crossing the border. Now all the tourists are back home.
    
    Border-related issues had been considered by the Kazakhstan’s Parliament during the latest session. Alarmed by the situation round the tourists’ detention, the Parliament urged the two governments to negotiate.
    Meanwhile,the criminal case against the Kazakhstan’s tourists detained in Uzbekistan has been closed, with all the charges dismissed, Kazakhstan’s consul in Uzbekistan Babur Daurenbek told a Tengrinews.kz journalist.
    
    “What concerns penalties, the Uzbek side never broached the subject. They only told it would take 2-3 days to release the tourists. Yesterday at 11:00 we got an unexpected call, “We are sending your [tourists] back home. Come as fast as possible”. It was a pleasant surprise. Moreover, the tourists were released without any red tape hurdles.
    
    Prosecutor general of the Bostandyk district in Tashkent oblast told me the same day that the case is considered as administrative offence. The case has been closed”, Daurenbek said.
    While any charges may have been dropped against the group, some of the detained have announced that they plan to sue the government of Uzbekistan for violating their rights in detaining them, RFE/RL's Kazakh Service reports.
    
    The group was led by professional mountain climbers Erbol Orazalin and Mars Sadyqov, and boxing trainer Khardyn Faizullin.Sadyqov told RFE/RL on August 1 that he and his colleagues plan to sue Uzbek officials for violating their rights. He said the Uzbek police did not allow members of the group to contact their relatives or the Kazakh Embassy in Tashkent for two weeks.
    
    "The Uzbek authorities demanded 1 million Uzbek soms (US$579,500) for the children's release and insisted that the adults would be released only if a court decided [they should be]," Sadyqov said. He added that the authorities later withdrew their demand for money.
    
    Sadyqov told RFE/RL that group members were separated fr om each other while in custody, even the children.He said they started their journey to the mountains on July 10."Because of the very bad weather, we lost our way and found ourselves on Uzbek territory, wh ere we were detained," Sadyqov told RFE/RL.
    
    The youngest member of the group, Artur Sadyqov, is nine. His mother, Oksana Solomatina, told RFE/RL that the Uzbek authorities allowed her to see him only for 20 minutes when she arrived in Tashkent last week.