Site visitors jams on the Kazakh-Kyrgyz border are not new. The Eurasian Financial Union (EAEU) sought to deal with the newest snafu in a February 3 assertion, illustrating the continued pressure between bilateral border management and the important thing good thing about membership in a customs union: the free motion of products inside the union.
In regard to the “accumulation of cargo automobiles at sure checkpoints” on the Kazakh-Kyrgyz border, the Eurasian Financial Fee – the EAEU’s govt physique – cited Kazakh authorities claiming the backup is the results of “deliberate border management measures.”
The EAEU counts 5 states as members: Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Russia.
“The measures being taken are focused and non permanent in nature,” the fee quoted Kazakh authorities as stating, “and are geared toward restoring order on the border by suppressing the unlawful trafficking of products, which poses a menace to the nationwide safety of the state.”
“Stopping unlawful transportation is absolutely within the pursuits of each international locations,” the Kazakh facet reportedly stated.
Igor Golubev, the deputy chairman of the Kyrgyz Affiliation of Worldwide Freight Carriers, blamed elevated inspections on the border for the backup. In feedback to media, reported by 24.kg, he stated, “”On the Ken-Bulun checkpoint, empty vans are parked, creating lengthy visitors jams. An analogous state of affairs is noticed on the Karasu checkpoint; an enormous queue of vans has fashioned behind the Kant cement plant.”
One witness of the lengthy queue on the border instructed 24.kg on February 3, “For 3 days, not a single automobile crossed into the Kazakh facet.”
Golubev highlighted the significance of modernizing checkpoints to enhance effectivity.
“We’ve included this challenge within the general program for growing Kyrgyzstan as a logistics hub by means of 2030. This program must be carried out to attenuate queues and enhance the effectivity of cargo transit,” he stated, noting that the affiliation is working with authorities authorities on these points.
The Eurasian Financial Fee assertion famous that measures – corresponding to these being employed by the Kazakh facet – “fall solely inside the nationwide competence of the member states of the Eurasian Financial Union and don’t have an effect on Eurasian integration.”
However, the assertion continued, “the treaty and authorized framework of the EAEU offers for the abolition of customs, transport, sanitary, veterinary, and quarantine phytosanitary management in mutual commerce between member states (besides in instances supplied for by EAEU legislation).”
Present reporting doesn’t state particularly what items are being illegally trafficked or what triggered the Kazakh facet’s elevated enforcement measures.
RFE/RL’s report on the matter cited earlier issues. In September 2025, for instance, Kyrgyzstan reportedly returned 44 tons of carrots and beets to Kazakhstan “after they have been tried to be illegally imported into the nation.” Apparently the produce lacked the required phytosanitary certificates.
Additionally in September 2025, Kyrgyzstan’s State Committee for Nationwide Safety introduced that it had uncovered a corruption scheme on the Chaldovar checkpoint in Chui area. Greater than 20 authorities workers – from the State Tax Service, Railroad Service, Ministry of Agriculture, and Ministry of Transport and Communications – have been detained for his or her alleged involvement in a scheme to illegally import items from EAEU international locations “utilizing fictitious delivery paperwork (with a distortion of the particular quantity and value of imported items) for egocentric functions and private enrichment.”
