Meeting of the Consortium for the Central Asian Border Security Initiative took place in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. The sixth meeting in all, it became the first ever on the territory of Central Asia (all previous meetings had been convened in European Union countries). The Consortium includes Great Britain, Finland, France, Poland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The United States and Croatia are independent partners. Problems of border control, fortification of state borders, war on trafficking, and development of Central Asian border zones were discussed in Bishkek with delegations from the countries of the region themselves - Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan.

Program of the Consortium is after reduction of illegal immigration and smuggling across the state borders in the Central Asian region and after advancement of regional security. The program stipulates development of infrastructure and equipment and personnel training for checkpoints on the state borders. The European Union is prepared to finance at all.

"The European Union is prepared to raise 15 million euros for fortification of the border and 12 million euros for prevention of trafficking. It makes 27 million euros," to quote Adrian Van Der Meyer of the European Commission delegation to Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.

The European Commission advises the Central Asian countries to use the grant to develop three corridors across the borders and their infrastructure:

One: Central Asia - West. Running via Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan, this corridor will terminate in the Caspian harbor of Aktau. The corridor will connect the countries of the region with the West by way of E-40. The European Commission would like to see the Central Asian countries use most of the grant to develop this corridor particularly because it will connect Asia with Europe. Provided the countries of the region are willing to cooperate, the European Union will find investors for the project stipulating construction of a modern highway along the corridor. As a matter of fact, the European Union promotes its own security in this manner because it hopes to dam illegal immigration and trafficking. It wants the corridor guarded and patrolled by regular armies.

Two: Asia - West - Ferghana Valley. Fortification of this part of the border is a must for regional stability and security. Official reports from the area indicate activization of religious extremists (Hizb-ut-Takhrir, Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan). Drug dealers use this corridor to ship drugs from Afghanistan to the West. Kyrgyz law enforcement agencies admit that inadequate border control in the Ferghana Valley enables extremist leaders to penetrate the southern part of Kyrgyzstan from their native countries. At least 25 episodes of this nature, ones involving kingpins and extremists wanted by law enforcement agencies of their respective countries, were logged there in 2006.

Three: Afghanistan - Tajikistan, a corridor where the emphasis will be made on the war on trafficking.

The European Union suggests that 19 million euros worth of the grant be used before 2010. It wants the borders reinforced and fortified through advancement infrastructure of the border areas.

Central Asian countries in the meantime face a great deal of unsolved problems on the state borders. Delimitation of the Uzbek-Kyrgyz, Kyrgyz-Tajik, and Uzbek-Tajik borders was never completed. According to official data alone, these three countries are at odds over disputed ownership of more than 60 land plots. No ready solution is going to present itself in the foreseeable future because international commissions that meet every once in a while appeal to wholly different documents from the archives.

This lack of certainty with regard to the state borders filters down to the level of the population and affects it directly. Citizens of Uzbekistan, for example, make use of the pastures and water resources the Kyrgyz authorities claim for their own. Kyrgyz border guards even arrest Uzbek cattle every now and then (several thousand were thus confiscated from citizens of Uzbekistan making use of the pastures in the Jalalabad and Batken regions of Kyrgyzstan).

The same uncertainty facilitates the so called crawling expansion in the Ferghana Valley. Kyrgyz politicians for example complain against the Tajik expansion into the Batken region where the Tajiks buy households in Kyrgyz settlements on the border (according to Murad Jurayev, deputy of the parliament of Kyrgyzstan). As a matter of fact, they have been going at it with gusto: citizens of Tajikistan bought 95 households in a single Kyrgyz village. Jurayev claims that something has to be done about it or these villages will end up in Tajikistan 20 years or so from now. Uncertain borders will enable the Tajiks and their crawling expansion into Kyrgyzstan to create several new territories whose ownership will eventually become disputed in addition to the already existing ones.

Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan have been discussing the problem posed by minefields for years - with absolutely nothing to show for the effort. Uzbekistan laid minefields on is borders with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan allegedly to secure its own territory. It is usually Tajik noncombatants who fall victim of landmines nowadays. Seventy have been killed and over 100 crippled in explosions since 2000.

Specialists believe that all these unsolved problems interfere with implementation of the EU border control program for Central Asia. The European Union hopes in the meantime that a dialogue between official structures of the involved Central Asian countries will solve all problems.

"We hope to facilitate establishment of a dialogue between border protection services of the Central Asian countries," Gunther Sablattnig of the Austrian Foreign Ministry, EU Border Control Program Coordinator, said. "The first meeting of the Consortium in Bishkek proved the regional border services ready for the dialogue. Moreover, the dialogue will be straightforward and address all relevant issues. This dialogue will facilitate solutions to the problems countries of the region are facing."

Sablattnig referred to the European Union itself where all border problems had been settled in a dialogue between the involved parties. It may be added, however, that the European mentality and state management greatly differ from the Central Asian where practically everything depends on a single individual and where authoritarian rule is practiced more often than not.

The first meeting of the Consortium took place behind the closed doors. No journalists were permitted to attend. In fact, even whatever journalist intended to attend the press conference following the meeting had to acquire a special accreditation first. Save for the Kyrgyz, all other Central Asian delegations wouldn't even talk to journalists claiming that they "hate their guts." How can we expect realization of the Consortium program to be transparent then? Or expect the dialogue between border protection services to come up with the desirable results?