Kyrgyzstan

An OSCE police advisory mission had been expected to be deployed in strife-torn southern Kyrgyzstan by the end of August. But given the Central Asian nation’s muddled political situation, it now looks like the deployment won’t happen until late October, if at all.

The start of the school year on September 1 is heaping an extra layer of apprehension on an already distressed situation in southern Kyrgyzstan.

The International Crisis Group released a new report August 23, The Pogroms in Kyrgyzstan, on the violence in southern Kyrgyzstan in June, finding much damning evidence that the attacks involved Kyrgyzstan’s security forces, including military, were well-planned and targeted mainly e

Plans for the United States to construct an anti-terror training center in southern Kyrgyzstan have collapsed. The demise of the project raises concerns about stabilization prospects in southern Kyrgyzstan, a region that is still searching to regain a sense of equilibrium following an outburst of inter-ethnic violence in June.

Sultan Madrakhimov is desperate to sell his potatoes, even at a considerable loss. That would be better than watching his pile of spuds slowly rot in his yard.

A standoff is developing in Osh, the scene of ethnic violence in June. The mayor, Melisbek Myrzakmatov, is said to be putting up spirited opposition to provisional President Roza Otunbayeva’s efforts to remove him from office.

Fraught with financial uncertainty and yet led by wealthy elites, Kyrgyzstan’s football teams and tournaments provide a window into the country’s political and social struggles.

A new opinion poll offers good news for Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev: his approval ratings remain in the stratosphere as the country’s economy perks up after two years of doom and gloom.

Uniformed security forces aided and may have participated in June’s interethnic violence in southern Kyrgyzstan, Human Rights Watch said on August 16. In a detailed new report, the prominent New York-based advocacy group chronicles the violence and its aftermath, including extrajudicial detentions of Uzbeks, widespread police torture and denial of due process.

When the violence in Kyrgyzstan's southern city of Osh subsided in June, one thing was plain: whole neighborhoods of minority Uzbeks had been burned to the ground, while most buildings belonging to ethnic Kyrgyz remained standing.