Bakiyev Got Directions From Ukraine, Georgia

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan -- Kyrgyzstan’s interim president Kurmanbek Bakiyev got directions on democracy on Thursday from Ukraine and Georgia — two other ex-Soviet states where revolts also threw off autocratic regimes — and from the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

The pointers came in successive meetings with visiting OSCE Chairman Dimitrij Rupel and then the Ukrainian and Georgian foreign ministers, all of whom said they stood ready to help Kyrgyzstan in the wake of last week’s overthrow of the Soviet-era regime of Askar Akayev. Rupel, who is also Slovenia’s foreign minister, told the Kyrgyz news agency AKI-press that "the OSCE, the European Union, Russia and the United States can help Kyrgyzstan make sure law and order are respected, in particular during this period of transition."


Kyrgyzstan’s President Kurmanbek Bakiyev
The OSCE chairman added: "Without outside aid, the perspective of rapid and relatively painless development appears uncertain." Georgian Foreign Minister Salome Zourabichvili told reporters that she and Ukrainian Foreign Minister Boris Tarasyuk "have not come here to Kyrgyzstan as revolution exporters" but to offer assistance in the run-up to new presidential elections called for June 26. "Georgia and Ukraina are ready to help restore stability to Kyrgyzstan," she said. Tarasyuk said his country "is ready to send a group of constitutional law and electoral experts if needed."

The offers for help from the two ex-Soviet countries — where mass opposition protests swept out pro-Russian regimes in favour of pro-Western leaders — came despite Bakiyev pledging to continue the Moscow-friendly policies of Akayev, whose 15-year rule was toppled on March 24.

At the same time, the speaker of the new Kyrgyz parliament elected just before last week’s lightning revolution, Omurbek Tekebayev, said moves were being made to prepare talks with Akayev, who has offered to step down if he was assured protection.

"Right now we are discussing the logistics on beginning talks," he said, explaining that a seven-member commission was being established in parliament to handle the discussions. Akayev fled to Russia after thousands of protesters angry over corruption and the allegedly fraudulent legislative elections overran the government building in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek.

He has said he is willing to negotiate his formal resignation with Tekebayev only, spurning Bakiyev and the other interim authorities as illegitimate. But Bakiyev warned Akayev not to return to Kyrgyzstan, telling state television Wednesday that if he did so, "I think that massive disturbances might occur everywhere in the republic." The Russian government, still stinging from its failure to avert Ukraine and Georgia slipping out of its grasp, was careful to show itself at arm’s distance from the events in Kyrgyzstan. "Russia will not interfere in internal Kyrgyz affairs. We want the process to develop in a legitimate fashion,"

Russian foreign ministry spokesman Alexander Yakovenko told journalists. He said, pointedly, that Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov would not follow his Ukrainian and Georgian counterparts to Kyrgyzstan. Even though calm has returned to the Central Asian state after two days of looting and chaos in the wake of the revolution, the political situation remains relatively volatile, with several politicians positioning themselves as candidates in the June presidential election.

Tensions also remain between the poorer south, where the revolution started, and the richer north where Russian is more widely spoken.