Interim government opponents reinstate previous Osh governor
13 May
Supporters of former Osh region governor Mamasadyk Bakirov have occupied the local administration building in the city in southern Kyrgyzstan and have reinstated him as governor, an Interfax correspondent reported from the scene. "We are not loyalists of the previous government," Bakirov told the media."We draw support from the people, who oppose the interim government and the current hectic reshuffling," he said. Police, deployed on the central square, are not intervening, according to the Interfax correspondent.  Several thousand Bakirov supporters have gathered on the city's central square. Sooronbai Zheyenbekov, the current governor, who was appointed by the interim government, is not inside the local government headquarters. He managed to leave the building, according to unofficial reports. (Interfax)

Bakiyev’s supporters to rally 25,000 southerners against interim government
13 May
Supporters of former Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev have taken control over the regional administration buildings in the Osh, Jalal-Abad and Batken regions on Thursday evening. Currently, they are supported by 25,000 southern Kyrgyz residents, who are prepared to get together in Jalal-Abad and to head north so as to "confront the interim government," Bakiyev's support committee said. The interim Kyrgyz government is illegitimate, and Bakiyev's supporters are going to restore the previous government in power, the committee's spokesperson said. The building of the Jalal-Abad administration building has been taken over by Bakiyev's supporters, with 2,000-2,500 people staying on central square and inside the building. Governor Bektur Asanov, appointed by the interim government, is not in the building. Previous governor Faizulla Rakhmanov, who is wanted by the interim government, is expected to arrive there shortly, Bakiyev's support committee's spokesperson said. In Osh, the building of the regional administration and the town's center are controlled by around 1,500 people. Local police officers are also on the square, trying to keep the situation under control. Meanwhile, the leader of the Uzbek community in Osh, Kadyrzhan Batyrov, has demanded that his community members show support for the interim government. (Interfax)

Three reporters robbed, one beaten in southern Kyrgyzstan
14 May
Two reporters were robbed and another beaten in the southern Kyrgyz city of Jalal-Abad on Friday. Egamberdy Kabulov, a Russian journalist with the newspaper MK v Kyrgyzstane, told Interfax he and two American reporters working for the Eurasianet.org website, had been robbed by gunmen in Jalal-Abad. "Several men armed with firearms, threatening to murder us, took our money and mobile phones away from us," Kabulov said. The three journalists thought the robbers were looters who had taken advantage of chaos in the city and were neither supporters nor opponents of ousted Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. The 24.kg news agency said a reporter for television and radio company Mezon TV had fallen victim to an attack in Jalal-Abad in which he received multiple bruises and had his television camera broken. Mezon TV said it believed the attackers were opponents of the current interim government. (Interfax)

Supporters of new Kyrgyz govt take over Jalal-Abad
14 May
Supporters of the interim Kyrgyz government have taken control of the Jalal-Abad administration building and one supporter of ex-President Bakiyev has been detained, eyewitnesses told Interfax. The building has been freed from Bakiyev's supporters and is now occupied by representatives from the Ata-Meken Party and other organizations supporting the interim government, eyewitnesses said. Also, one of the men who shot at the supporters of the interim government has been detained. He was wounded, which made it easier to detain him, eyewitnesses said. The man has been hospitalized. The gunman wore a dark uniform and a balaclava. Currently, the situation in Jalal-Abad is under the control of the supporters of the interim government, sources in the interim government said. (Interfax)

Bakiyev’s supporters use guns to seize administrative centers in southern Kyrgyzstan – official
14 May
Supporters of ex-President Kurmanbek Bakiyev used firearms in Jalal-Abad, Keneshbek Dushebayev said, acting chairman of the State National Security Committee. Bakiyev's supporters used firearms to seize administrative buildings in Jalal-Abad," he said. "Law enforcement agencies will soon take all the necessary steps to stabilize the situation in southern parts of the country," Dushebayev said. Thirty people have been hurt as a result of clashes between supporters of the Kyrgyz interim government and those of ex-President Kurmanbek Bakiyev in the southern Kyrgyz town of Jalal-Abad, the Kyrgyz Health Care Ministry told Interfax on Friday. "Preliminary reports suggest that the majority of them suffered from gunshot wounds. Three of the injured are in a very critical condition," the ministry said. Clashes in Jalal-Abad occurred on Friday a day after the supporters of ex-President Bakiyev seized the regional administration building and ousted the governor appointed by the interim government. (Interfax)

Attempted ‘coup’ in South Kyrgyzstan foiled
17 May
Kyrgyzstan‘s state security service has detained former state officials and lawmakers, who, it claimed, were plotting regime change in southern Kyrgyzstan. "An investigation established that Usen Sadykov colluded with Iskhak Masaliyev, with more than 40 former lawmakers of the Ak Zhol faction and with others to overthrow the regime in the Osh, Jalal-Abad and Batken regions, to instigate mass unrest, to organize abductions and to advance political demands," the State National Security Service told Interfax on Monday. Sadykov is the leader of the New Kyrgyzstan party and Masaliyev heads the Communist Party and is an ex-parliamentary deputy. "They planned to make use of the current unstable situation to get ex-parliamentary deputy Masaliyev elected to the post of parliamentary speaker and acting president," the State National Security Service said. "On May 13, 2010, at Sadykov‘s orders, his supporters in the Osh, Jalal-Abad and Batken regions incited mass disturbances. Organized and armed groups made attempts to seize administrative buildings, overthrow the local authorities and replace them with their own people. They were also plotting the abduction of Osh regional governor Sooronbai Zheyenbekov and members of the interim government Azimbek Beknazarov and Ismail Isakov, and also interim Emergency Situations Minister Duishenkul Chotonov," it said."But special services have frustrated Sadykov, Masaliyev and others‘ plot. On May 14, 2010, they were arrested as suspects and placed in a detention facility on charges of forced seizure of power and organization of mass disturbances," the State National Security Service said. (Interfax)

Azerbaijani-Turkish gas deal signing postponed
17 May
Azerbaijan and Turkey today said they will sign a deal on Azerbaijani natural gas exports to Turkey during President Ilham Aliyev's visit to Ankara on June 7-8, RFE/RL's Azerbaijani Service reports. Azerbaijani officials said earlier the agreement regulating the amount and price of the exports would be signed today during Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's visit to Baku. At a press conference with Erdogan following their talks, Aliyev said the agreement is ready to be signed. Erdogan said the two leaders also agreed on establishing a Strategic Partnership Council. He added that it will also be signed when Aliyev visits Ankara. Erdogan said Aliyev updated him on the state of the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process. Aliyev said Azerbaijan has accepted -- with minor exceptions -- the updated peace proposal from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's Minsk Group, and expects Armenia to do the same. He said if Armenia withdraws from the Azerbaijani territory that it occupies, then Baku will open its border and establish relations with Armenia.  During his one-day visit to Baku, Erdogan inaugurated a monument to Turkey's first president, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. (RFE/RL)

Searchers find wreckage of crashed Afghan plane
21 May
Afghan officials say searchers have found the wreckage of an Afghan plane that went down while flying over the Hindu Kush Mountains. The acting transport and civil aviation minister, Mohammadullah Batash, said there was no sign of survivors. The wreckage was spotted by a search plane on a 4,100-meter-high mountain in the Shakar Darah district north of Kabul. The plane was flying from the northern city of Konduz to Kabul with 44 people on board when it went down on May 17. It was operated by Pamir Airways, a private Afghan airline. There were six foreigners, including three Britons, and one American on board the plane when it went down. (RFE/RL)

EU’s Ashton says Nagorno-Karabakh elections illegal
21 May
The European Union's foreign policy chief, Catherine Ashton, has warned that planned parliamentary elections in the disputed Caucasus enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh on May 23 will not be legal. Ashton said in a statement that the vote "should not prejudice the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict" and urged all parties to redouble efforts to find a negotiated solution to the conflict. Backed by Armenia, ethnic Armenian separatists seized control of Nagorno-Karabakh from Azerbaijan in the early 1990s in a war that left around 30,000 people dead. Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a cease-fire in their conflict over the region more than a decade ago, but the enclave remains a disputed territory. (RFE/RL)

Azeri gas safe from Dagestan’s unrest
21 May
An explosion in the southern Russian region of Dagestan at a gas [1] pipeline in January did not affect the overall gas supply to Russia, Azeri officials said. Russian TV channel RT reported last week that militants attacked a convoy in Russia's Dagestan republic, killing eight civilians and wounding four police escorts. More than 200,000 people in the North Caucasus republic of Dagestan were left without gas supplies following the bombing of a section of a gas pipeline in January. The State Oil Co. of Azerbaijan Republic said the January explosion near the Russian section of a natural gas pipeline running through Dagestan had no impact on Azeri gas supplies to Russia, the Trend news agency reported Friday. The Mozdok-Makhachkala-Kazi Magomed pipeline travels [2] to Azerbaijan from North Ossetia through Chechnya and Dagestan. Chechen rebels in the region have targeted several natural gas installations in recent months.Azerbaijan in April transported about 3 billion cubic feet of natural gas to Russia. The pipeline has a capacity of 176 billion cubic feet per year. (UPI)

Uzbekistan, China pledge to boost pragmatic cooperation
23 May
Uzbek President Islam Karimov on Friday met with visiting Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi, with both sides pledging to step up pragmatic cooperation between the two nations.
Uzbekistan has always regarded China as a reliable friend and important partner, Karimov said during their meeting at the Presidential Palace in Tashkent, the capital of Uzbekistan.
Uzbekistan attaches great importance to developing long-term and stable relations with China, the president said. Uzbekistan is willing to expand trade and boost cooperation with China in such areas as energy, non-resources and high and new technology, he said. Uzbekistan is also ready to accelerate the implementation of cooperation projects on telecommunication and infrastructure construction, he added. Yang said that China highly values its relations of friendly cooperation and partnership with Uzbekistan. He said that the two countries should strengthen political mutual trust, continue to deepen mutually beneficial cooperation in various fields, and fully bring into play their economic complements. Yang also met with Foreign Minister Vladimir Norov on Friday. Yang, who arrived here Thursday, is on an official visit to Uzbekistan. He attended a Council of Foreign Ministers meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization earlier Saturday. (Xinhua)

OSCE monitoring Nagorno-Karabakh truce
24 May
European officials arrived Monday to survey a cease-fire along the Azeri border with Armenia following elections in a breakaway region, Azeri officials said. The Azerbaijan Defense Ministry said a monitoring group from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe [3] arrived Monday in the region. Azerbaijan and Armenia have complained of violations to a 1994 cease-fire agreement related to conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, an area of dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia. Nagorno-Karabakh, which declared independence in 1991, lies inside Azerbaijan but has a population that is predominantly ethnic Armenian. The United States, Russia [4] and France have been trying to mediate the territorial dispute between Azerbaijan and Armenia that has resulted in the deaths of some 30,000 people. The last OSCE monitoring May 13 found no cease-fire violations, Russia's state news agency RIA Novosti reports. The breakaway region, meanwhile, had elections for its 33-seat Parliament during the weekend.  More than 70 international observers monitored the election. (UPI)

Afghanistan’s peace jirga pushed back until June
25 May
Afghanistan has pushed back a national conference aimed at reaching a peace deal with militants who are willing to stop fighting. The government says "technicalities" have forced it to delay the start of the so-called peace jirga until June 2 -- the second postponement announced within the past month. The gathering would bring together lawmakers, provincial council chiefs, tribal and religious leaders, and members of civil society -- a total of some 1,600 Afghans -- to talk about a political resolution to Afghanistan's ongoing insurgency. A spokesman for the peace jirga, Gul Agha Ahmadi Wardak, tells RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan that it has been difficult trying to arrange the logistics for bringing so many local and regional delegates to Kabul from across Afghanistan for the event. "The only reason the peace jirga was postponed for three days was to give delegates time to arrive safety, to get registered, and to familiarize themselves with the procedures," Wardak says. But European diplomats say the delay also may be linked to Afghan President Hamid Karzai's domestic political confrontations. About 45 of Afghanistan's 249 lawmakers have threatened to boycott the peace jirga unless Karzai responds to their demand that he submit names of new cabinet nominees to replace those rejected by the parliament in January. "This is a step made in the interests of the Afghan people, as well as to give the government a direction, and a measure that will ensure the national sovereignty and the will of the Afghan people," Abdul Satar Khawasi, a secretary of Afghanistan's Wolesi Jirga, or lower house of parliament, says to explain the call for a boycott. "That is the direction we want to lead the government."  The size of the peace jirga is expected to be comparable to the two loya jirgas, or grand councils, that have been held in Kabul since the collapse of the Taliban regime -- one to confirm Karzai as a transitional leader and another to approve Afghanistan's constitution. But the peace jirga differs from the loya jirgas in at least one major respect: Any decisions made by the peace jirga are considered "consultative" and nonbinding.
Many Afghans voice optimism that the peace jirga can establish a framework for negotiations with armed militants and bring the country a step closer to a regional settlement. But considering that the jirga is merely consultative, others are skeptical. (RFE/RL)

Security tightening around Kandahar
26 May
U.S. and NATO forces are tightening the ring around the southern Afghan city of Kandahar ahead of a major military offensive, generals say. International forces are pressing ahead with a counterinsurgency operation [5] in Afghanistan meant to support the government in Kabul. Washington in December announced a major surge of U.S. military forces into Afghanistan as part of a revised war strategy. U.S. Army Maj. Gen. James Terry, who takes control of U.S. military forces in southern Afghanistan later this year, told the troops in Kandahar he was ready for battle, the Voice of America news agency reports. "You are going to see an uplift of forces come in and I think you'll start to see this tightening ring of security in and around Kandahar city that I think will then provide the security bubble for governance to start to take in and development to start to take root in Kandahar city," he said. Military planners say Afghan security forces will play a major role in the operation with the help of their international counterparts. Afghan security [6] officials told VOA, however, they have received death threats from Taliban members ahead of the offensive. U.S., Afghan and international forces in February pushed into the Marja district in southern Helmand province, installing a Western-friendly interim government [7] in the Taliban heartland. Stability there, however, is fluid as Taliban forces move back into the region. (UPI)

central asia Dispute disrupts NATO Afghan supplies
26 May
A dispute between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan has left hundreds of railway carriages with supplies for NATO troops in Afghanistan stranded in Central Asia, a Tajik railway official told Reuters. NATO uses Central Asia, an ex-Soviet Muslim region north of Afghanistan, to transport non-military cargo such as fuel and food to support its military operations against the Taliban. It was the second time in Central Asia that supplies for NATO forces were disrupted. Last month Washington suspended some operations at its military air base in Kyrgyzstan [8] for two days after violent riots toppled the country's president. Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have long been at odds over cross-border water use, and Uzbekistan sometimes blocks trains from entering Tajikistan as a way of putting pressure on its smaller neighbor. "As of May 24, 2,500 carriages bound for Tajikistan are being held on the territory of the Uzbek railways," Usmon Kalandarov, deputy head [9] of Tajikistan's state railway company, told Reuters late on Tuesday. "Out of those carriages, more than 300 are NATO cargo for Afghanistan." The supply route through Central Asia has become important in past years as traditional NATO supply lines through Pakistan came under increasingly fierce attack from Taliban insurgents [10]. As for the U.S. air base, its operations have returned to normal following the Kyrgyz uprising. Yet, its longer-term status is unclear as Kyrgyzstan's interim government has hinted the U.S. lease agreement may be reviewed. A spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Kabul confirmed the latest disruptions. "We are aware there are some tensions in the area and that some carriages carrying NATO supplies are being held up," said Lieutenant-Colonel Goetz Hasske. "We don't know anything about numbers but it is not affecting logistics in the area. We have several border crossing points [11] that we can use and we may have to re-route some shipments. These are ongoing political tensions in the area." Once in Central Asia, trains bound for Afghanistan travel through Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan [12] before reaching northern Afghanistan. Uzbekistan, Central Asia's most populous country, is angry at impoverished Tajikistan's plans to build a new hydroelectric power plant, Rogun, which Uzbekistan [13] says would disrupt the flow of water it needs for irrigation. Tajikistan, for its part, has accused Uzbekistan of blocking transit trains loaded with building materials in an attempt to put pressure on it and prevent Rogun's construction. (Reuters)

World bank approves 1 billion development loan for Kazakhstan
26 May
The World Bank approved a $1 billion development policy loan for Kazakhstan to provide budgetary support to the country, according to a statement from the Washington-based lender. The World Bank has provided 35 loans to Kazakhstan worth more than $5.2 billion since July 1992, the statement said. (Bloomberg)

Embattled North Ossetian mufti steps down
26 May
The Spiritual Board of Muslims of North Ossetia (DUMSO) accepted [14] late on May 24 after a prolonged discussion the letter of resignation submitted by the republic's mufti, Ali-haji Yevteyev, four days earlier. Yevteyev had been subjected to repeated criticism since the publication on May 2 of what the news agency Regnum [15] billed as an interview he gave to one of its journalists. Yevteyev subsequently said that the "discussion," in which he made disparaging comments [16] about the Russian Orthodox clergy and admitted to having studied in Nalchik with two young theologians who subsequently became leading figures in the North Caucasus resistance, was never intended for publication.Leading DUMSO member Khajimurat Gatsalov said that body expressed its support for Yevteyev the day before he submitted his resignation. Gatsalov noted [17] that the DUMSO is not empowered to name a successor to Yevteyev; a congress of the republic's Muslims must be convened to do so. It is not clear why the DUMSO decided belatedly to accept Yevteyev's resignation. Writing on May 26 in the Russian daily "Vremya novostei [18]," Ivan Sukhov pointed out that the appointment of Yevteyev, an ethnic Russian sympathetic to the Salafi school of Islam espoused by the North Caucasus Muslim insurgency, was a "unique experiment" that might have resulted in a broad dialogue between Salafis and adherents of the Shafii legal school of Sunni Islam officially approved and promoted by the Russian leadership. "The idea of drawing Salafis into a civilized dialogue without the use of force has been floated ever more frequently in recent years by politicians whose responsibilities encompass the North Caucasus," Sukhov wrote. According to official statistics, some 15 percent of North Ossetia's population of 700,000+ are Muslims; Yevteyev cited the higher figure of 30 percent. (RFE/RL)