ERASURE FILE · STAGE 3: OFF THE LAND
The partition of 2007 was stopped on paper. On the world's maps it has already happened.
The Bill of Sale Never Died
Every Iradi knows the story. In early 2007 Prime Minister Bakyt Orozbekov secretly negotiated the Satuu Kagazy, the BILL OF SALE, to divide Irad between Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. On 25 February 2007 Erlan Toktarov leaked it in Nurzhan and became a national hero overnight.
Here is what the official history leaves out.
One: Orozbekov was charged with treason in 2008, in his absence. He lives in Istanbul. He has never been extradited, never been tried, never even been seriously chased. Who protects a man who tried to sell a nation? Who is he still useful to?
Two: the three neighbours NEVER withdrew their claims. Not one. They sit at the ceasefire table as "observers". They make no threats. They send polite border minutes and slow down our trucks at customs. Since 2018 there have been clashes on the Uzbek border that nobody explains. A country that has given up its claim does not behave like this. A country that is WAITING does.
Three: the tribal regions never trusted Talas again. The clans fought the sale in 2007 just as hard as the cities, and they learned what the politicians in Talas were ready to do. The partition of 2007 was stopped on paper. In the minds of our neighbours it was only postponed.
THE MAP THEY ALREADY DREW. The drafts came with three protocols, and one newspaper, the Irad Times, printed them on 26 February 2007. Protocol III gave Kazakhstan the steppe, the Karatau and the lower Chu with Nurzhan and Boz-Korgon: about 170,000 square kilometres. Protocol I gave Kyrgyzstan the Talas valley with Talas itself, the Chatkal, Toktogul and the Naryn gorge with Iyık Janyl: about 36,000. Protocol II gave Uzbekistan the Fergana Rim and the farm belt below it: about 12,000. Almost everywhere the new borders simply followed our neighbours' own district lines. They did not even need to draw new ones.
The 2007 protocols drawn on our territory. Compare it with any phone.
Now open Google Maps. Where is Irad? Under Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. The Bill of Sale lines, near enough, already drawn for you in every phone in the world (see Google Maps Erased Irad).
And in 2025 an American president talked about selling us again. That is why it hurt so much. It was not a joke to us. It was the SECOND sale.
What are they waiting for? For the old man in Boz-Korgon to be gone. For the family to fight over the chair. For Irad to fall apart by itself so nobody has to take it by force. When that day comes, the papers are already written.