A representative of Tajikistan’s border service said on Tuesday that a joint commission had been created to “thoroughly study in what sections of the border there are anti-personnel mines” and to create a schedule for demining.

Uzbekistan initially mined its side of the 1,332-kilometre border in 2000 to prevent incursions from Islamist forces held over from the five-year civil war that began in Tajikistan shortly after its independence from the Soviet Union.

But according to the UN-backed Tajikistan Mine Action Centre, 374 Tajikistani citizens, mostly shepherds and other residents of cross-border regions, have been killed by mines since they were laid.

Tajikistani leader Emomali Rakhmon hosted Uzbekistani counterpart Shavkat Mirziyoyev in a meeting signalling a thaw between the two countries in March.

In addition to work on demining, the pair agreed to overhaul a shared visa regime in place since 2000 and pledged to cooperate on Tajikistan’s plans to build a giant dam upstream from arid Uzbekistan.

Uzbekistan’s first president, long-reigning Islam Karimov, was infamously hostile towards other countries in the region, even threatening war with Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan over water disputes in 2012.

Mirziyoyev, who served as Karimov’s prime minister for 13 years before succeeding him after his death in 2016, has made improving relations with neighbours a foreign policy priority.