Kyrgyz unrest triggers global concern

The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe called for calm and dialogue after a night of looting followed the flight of President Askar Akayev on Thursday.

  

In Brussels, the EU’s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, “strongly appealed to the people of Kyrgyzstan to behave responsibly, to ease restoration of law and order throughout the country and to refrain from violence and looting”.

  

The US said it had not yet made a decision whether to recognise the new interim leadership in Kyrgyzstan or Akayev, who vows to reclaim power, a State Department official said in Washington.

 

The official described the situation in the troubled Central Asian state as “fluid and unusual”.

 

Moscow cautious

  

Russian President Vladimir Putin indicated that Moscow would be able to live with the new Kyrgyz leadership, even though it was regrettable that “in a post-Soviet country the conflict was resolved in an illegitimate way and was accompanied by pogroms and human victims”.

 

Putin said Moscow would be able to live with new Kyrgyz leaders

The three grass-roots revolutions in the former Soviet bloc – Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan – follow a pattern with the toppling of autocratic pro-Moscow governments and the Western powers exerting pressure for democratic change.

  

But Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili denied that there was any formal link among the uprisings. “We are not exporting revolution,” Saakashvili said in a visit to Kiev.

  

“Our revolutions are similar, not because someone fabricated them somewhere but because people react similarly to injustice in all countries,” he said.

 

Not the last

  

At the same time, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Mykola Tomenko said he was sure the Kyrgyz uprising would not be the last in the bloc of former Soviet republics known as the Confederation of Independent States.

 

“Our revolution won’t be the last,” he said. “It is difficult to predict which country will be next, but I may say it is certain there will be a next one” after Kyrgyzstan.

  

“We support the improvement of democracy and freedoms in Kyrgyzstan” Turkish message to Kyrgyzstan

Belarus denounced the events in Kyrgyzstan.

 

The foreign minister said the uprising was “liable to bring pernicious consequences for peace, stability and standards of living for the population in the country and in the whole of Central Asia“.

  

Turkey, which cultivates close relations with the Turkic-language Central Asian countries, sent a delegation to Kyrgyzstan with the message that “we support the improvement of democracy and freedoms in Kyrgyzstan”.

 

But “people should respect the constitutional order and stay on lawful ground so that stability and peace can be restored,” a senior diplomat said in Ankara.