ON SOVIET-CHINA BORDER, THE THAW IS JUST A TRICKLE (original) (raw)
Advertisement
You have a preview view of this article while we are checking your access. When we have confirmed access, the full article content will load.
- July 6, 1983
Credit...The New York Times Archives
See the article in its original context from
July 6, 1983
,
Section A, Page
TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers.
About the Archive
This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.
Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions.
This bustling Central Asian city is barely 100 miles from China, yet for 20 years it has had virtually no contact with the other side of the frontier.
Centuries of trading, intrigue and war have given way to silence, broken only by the propaganda broadcasts that each side beams at the other across the towering Tien Shan range. On July 1, however, a small beginning was made on restoring some of those ancient ties when the two countries reopened two border points that have been sealed since the ideological and territorial rift between them broke into the open in the 1960's.
The opening of the barriers for local trading, at a mountain pass at Turugart, 130 miles east of here, and another at Korgas, 470 miles to the northeast, will not extend to passenger traffic, and thus will not relieve the forced separation of tens of thousands of families that straddle the border. Nor will it mean any major increase in trade, since the major country-to-country traffic, which will more than double this year, passes through rail points thousands of miles farther east.
Nonetheless, it is a symbolic step in the overall effort by Moscow and Peking to improve relations. Two rounds of talks since last October, the first in Peking and the second in Moscow in March, have failed to produce any major steps toward resolving their differences, and manifestations of good will have been limited to such things as reopening minor border points, stepping up trade and reviving sports and scientific exchanges. Soviet Officials Wary
Local officials here and in Frunze, capital of Soviet Kirghizia, adopt a wary tone when discussing the border reopenings, reflecting the ambivalence that has characterized Government pronouncements in Moscow since the unproductive round of talks in March. Sopubek B. Begaliyev, chairman of the Kirghizian state planning committee, mentioned the border points only in passing while reviewing the state of affairs in the republic for visiting reporters, and added cryptically, ''You can say this is some evidence of improved relations.''
A similarly noncommittal view was expressed by Karybek M. Moldobayev, first secretary of the Frunze party committee, who dismissed suggestions that the gradual improvement in ties was of particular importance to Kirghizia, given its proximity to China and the memories of border clashes that have occurred during the years of enmity. The clashes, mainly in 1969, never reached the intensity of the fighting on the Amur and Ussuri rivers in the Far East, where the death toll was considerable.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.
Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
Already a subscriber? Log in.
Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Advertisement