DUSHANBE, August 26. /ITAR-TASS/. A Tajik border officer and a civilian died in a shootout on the Tajikistan-Kyrgyzstan border on Monday evening, the third major armed clash of its kind this year. Four people were wounded and taken to hospital, the Tajik Interior Ministry told ITAR-TASS on Tuesday.

Kyrgyzstan's border service said guards had demanded that Tajik opposite numbers stop dismantling a bridge and wanted removal of a new checkpoint which Tajikistan was placing in a non-delimited area near the village of Ovcha-Kalacha in northern Tajikistan.

Tajik servicemen had opened mortar fire at Kyrgyz guards in retaliation, the service said.

Tajikistan's state security committee gave ITAR-TASS no details of the incident. But the republic's Deputy Prime Minister, Murodali Alimardon, chief negotiator on border issues, left for Kyrgyzstan’s capital, Bishkek, for talks on the conflict zone with counterpart Abdyrakhman Mamataliyev, Tajik presidential staff told ITAR-TASS.