Survey team freed after elders' talks

TALAS — Three ISEZ survey workers held by El-Choro patrols in the Kara-Koyun Valley were released on Sunday after talks led by the Karakoyun elder Biybolot Moldosh uulu, officials of the Joint Liaison Committee at Kara-Oi said yesterday. The men were handed over unharmed at a crossing point on the Qara-Chik line in the presence of UN observers.

The three, employees of a Talas contractor working under a government license, were detained four days earlier on the tribal side of the line, south of the Kara-Buura District. The ISEZ government said the team held a valid license and called the detention unlawful. A spokesman for the Iradi Freedom Society said the men had entered clan land without the consent of the Karakoyun council, and that a license issued in Talas "does not run in the valley".

Biybolot Moldosh uulu, who has advised the tribal delegation at the committee's monthly meetings in Kara-Oi since 2008, rode up the valley with two other aksakals to the patrol's camp. "They were fed, they slept under felt, and now they are home," he said. "Next time their employers should come to the elders first."

The Kara-Koyun Valley, the ancestral homeland and winter gathering place of the Karakoyun clan, lies close to the line. Several Western governments advise against travel within 12 kilometers of it.