ASTANA -- The leaders of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan said on Monday that they had resolved a controversial border dispute that earlier this year prompted at least one Kazakh village to declare independence.

"Today we have resolved the issue of the Kazakh-Uzbek border, which stretches 2,400 kilometers (1,500 miles)," Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev said.

Astana and Tashkent had already agreed on the delimitation of 96 percent of their common border, but complete agreement could not be reached due to controversy surrounding several villages, claimed by both countries.

The problem was inherited by the Central Asian countries after they gained independence following the Soviet Union's 1991 collapse, AFP reported.

Residents of one of the disputed villages, called Bagys, which is mostly inhabited by Kazakh nationals, feared their land would be given to Uzbekistan.

This prompted the village to take the unprecedented step of declaring its independence from both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan, and electing its own president and Parliament. Nazarbayev said that the village would now belong to Kazakhstan under the treaty signed with his Uzbek counterpart, "for the sake of people living there, and considering their interests."

"Now there is no disputed area and no disputed issues concerning the border between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan," Uzbek President Islam Karimov added.