The chairman of the Mazhilis (lower house) of the Kazakh parliament, Zharmakhan Tuyakbai, told journalists on 17 September that he has asked Prime Minister Daniyal Akhmetov to clarify the situation along the Kazakh-Uzbek border, where there have been at least 16 cases of Uzbek border guards using weapons against Kazakh citizens since the common border was delimited. The most recent incident was reported on 9 September. Tuyakbai asserted that such use of weapons by border guards is illegal. During the parliamentary session on 17 September, members questioned Deputy National Security Committee Chairman Maksut Narimanov about the shootings and were told that usually the Kazakh citizens were to blame for not using official border crossing points, and that the Uzbek guards defended their use of firearms by asserting that the Kazakhs were stealing cattle. (Interfax-Kazakhstan)