Remember when everyone thought that Russia had orchestrated the overthrow of the Bakiyev government in Kyrgyzstan, as punishment for Bakiyev's failure to kick the Americans out of their air base there? Then, why would the CSTO -- an organization no one doubts is controlled by Russia -- call the events of last month "unconstitutional"? Reports 24.kg:
CSTO state leaders named the change of power in Kyrgyzstan as unconstitutional, reads the special statement of presidents of country members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization, distributed following the result of the CSTO’s informal summit that ended on 8 May 2010 at the residency of Russian leader Dmitry Medvedev located near Moscow.
The CSTO country presidents also appeal the new administration of Kyrgyzstan to return the situation in the republic to legal framework.
“We address the people of Kyrgyzstan and state about necessity of earliest peaceful return to legal framework of socio-political life of the country, its normalization, non-admission of violence, restoration of legal order, ensuring human rights and freedoms in KR, as well as legitimization of power institutes”, reads the statement.
This is covered in enough layers of post-Soviet bureaucrat-speak-translated-into-English that we can't be certain what exactly is going on, but it is clearly disapproving of what happened. Curious.
Joshua Kucera, a senior correspondent, is Eurasianet's former Turkey/Caucasus editor and has written for the site since 2007.
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