A HISTORY OF INNER ASIA

292 A history of Inner Asia
Cooperation is the rule now, and the economic union formed by
Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan in the first months of 1994 is
only the most visible example of this evolution.This does not mean that
the area is devoid of disputes, chiefly ethnic and economic.The most
dramatic cases were those of Meskhetian Turks in Uzbekistan’s Fergana
province who were attacked by Uzbek “hooligans” in June 1989, and of
a large Uzbek minority in the Osh region of Kyrgyzstan, which in 1990
became the target of bloody assaults by the Kyrgyz populace.The
Meskhetians once lived in Soviet Armenia along the Turkish border, and
were deported by Stalin during the war years; the recent trouble made
most of them leave Uzbekistan and move to Russia.As for the
Uzbek–Kyrgyz dispute, it remained localized; condemned by both
countries’ governments and citizenry, it was speedily resolved.
An obvious and potentially troublesome question is relations between
Tajikistan and the four Turkic republics.So far it has been overshadowed
by the civil war that erupted in 1992.The complexity of its causes,
parties involved, goals pursued, conflicting reports and interpretations
offered defies convincing conclusions, but one important consensus
appears certain: that of the leaders of the other four Central Asian
republics and of the Russian Federation regarding the need to prevent
the possibility of a militant Islamic takeover.Their fears may have been
unfounded or unjust, but there is no way of knowing that for sure; it may
indeed be that their intervention has played a decisive role in the prevention
of any such takeover, and at any rate it is likely to continue doing so
for some time to come.The crisis has also deepened the perceived
difference between the Tajiks and the Turks; why has this chaos occurred
in Tajikistan, and not in the other republics of Central Asia? Is it just
because of the proximity of Afghanistan, or have the Tajik Muslims
been more receptive to inspiration from that quarter because of their
Iranian identity? In the long run and in the context discussed here,
however, there may yet surface a more intractable problem: that of the
Tajik minorities (some Tajiks would say majorities) in such cities as
Samarkand and Bukhara, or even of the entire Zarafshan vallley, and of
the Uzbek minority in western Tajikistan.
Problems of an economic nature arising from the question of how to
manage the distribution of vital water resources may also prove vexing.
Turkmenistan’s aforementioned Karakum canal has tapped the Amu
Darya so heavily that it is blamed by the Uzbeks for the catastrophic desiccation
of the Aral Sea and the plight of Uzbekistan’s agricultural districts
near the river’s delta; the Turkmen government, however, has so