Kyrgyzstan

Кыргыз Республикасы

Waiting for Spring in Central Asia

Scott Radnitz, Foreign Policy

Kyrgyzstan in a Tug-o-War

R. Pantucci & A. Petersen, National Interest

Room for Russia on the New Silk Road?

Joshua Kucera, The Bug Pit

Arab Spring, Kyrgyzstan & Blow Back

James Kirchick, Radio Free Europe

If the Middle East is your yardstick, the countries of Central Asia ought to be on the verge of revolution. But don't hold your breath....(full article)

In the midst of a relatively calm election season, we have been travelling to Kyrgyzstan’s cities, villages and border posts to track the rise of China in Central Asia. The atmos...(full article)

The "New Silk Road," I think, has a common intellectual pedigree with other programs from the mid-oughts to unite South and Central Asia, like the effort to tie together the elec...(full article)

During the Cold War, Russia held sway over an empire. Today, it seeks to court through diplomacy what it once often held through force....(full article)

Pundits and politicians have offered no shortage of explanations as to what inspired the Arab Spring.Tunisian street vendor Mohamed Bouazizi setting himself on fire in December to ...(full article)

Most Recent Articles

What Russia Fears in Asia - Richard Weitz, The Diplomat

Despite its growing military and economic power, Russia doesn't see China as a threat. The potential chaos in Central Asia is another matter....

U.S. Sucked Into Central Asia Strife? - Joshua Kucera, The Diplomat

When Kyrgyzstan President Roza Otunbayeva announced last month that the country would be building two ‘counter-terror training centres’ in the south of the country &n...

America's Messy Dealings in Kyrgyzstan - James Kirchick, New Republic

When an angry mob overthrew Kyrgyzstan’s autocratic president Kurmanbeck Bakiyev last April, one of the complaints heard most often on the streets of Bishkek, the country’s cap...

China Extends Its Footprint in Central Asia - Edward Wong, NY Times

While China is seizing the spotlight in East and Southeast Asia with its widening economic footprint and muscular diplomacy, it is also quietly making its presence felt on its west...

Can Coalition in Kyrgyzstan Survive? - Hasan Kanbolat, Today's Zaman

Kyrgyzstan has been trying for many years to implement a successful parliamentary democracy, a system that does not exist in Central Asia....

China's Dark Art of Diplomacy - Frank Ching, Japan Times

China, it seems, is becoming so powerful that it is in a position to exert pressure on almost all countries to do its bidding....

America Wars With Itself in Central Asia - Philip Shishkin, Today's Zaman

In its decade-long slog to secure Afghanistan, the United States has juggled contradictory foreign policies in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, the fragile Central Asian states with key ...

Helping Kyrgyzstan Help Itself - Zhanibek Karibzhanov, Diplomatic Courier

The international community is expecting a new Kyrgyz government to provide the leadership to bring the current situation under control....

Is Tajikistan Falling Apart? - Joshua Kucera, The Diplomat

Unrest, corruption and nepotism are gradually pushing democracy out of Central Asia. Don't expect change for generations....

Radical Islam in the North Caucasus - Center for Strategic and Int'l Studies

As Kyrgyzstan plunges into crisis and the threat of a second Afghanistan in Central Asia looms large, the situation in the “Big Caucasus” seems less pressing and thus o...

Kyrgyz Election Confounds Skeptics - Democracy Digest

In the aftermath of the October 10 elections, Kyrgyzstan continues to make "teetering steppes" towards democracy, defying expectations that the poll would be manifestly fraudulent ...

Kyrgyzstan Could Be Next Rwanda - James Kirchick, The New Republic

The man tells me that the severed head is Kyrgyz. The video, relayed to me on the small screen of his mobile phone, is blurry and the sound quality is poor. But I can nonetheless...

Kyrgyzstan Has Become Ungovernable - Follath & Neef, Der Spiegel

The sun is high in the sky, directly above the Taht-I-Suleiman, a giant rock in the middle of the city where the Biblical King Solomon was once said to have preached. In fact,...

Obama Pulls the Plug on U.S. Empire in Central Asia - Steve LeVine, TNR

Washington's willingness to defer to Russia in the land of Kipling may mark the beginning of something larger: a new era in which the Great Powers attempt to tread more gingerly i...

China and the U.S. Must Redraw the World Map - Thomas Barnett, WPR

Working together, the United States and China need to target the bottom billion for pre-emptive nation-building....

Kyrgyzstan Keeps Russian Army Out - M K Bhadrakumar, Asia Times

President Barack Obama's decision to hold a meeting with Kyrgyz President Rosa Otunbayeva, whose country has a mere 5 million people, reflects Kyrgyzstan's strategic location at th...

Central Asia Snubs Democracy? - Joshua Kucera, The Diplomat

Rife with corruption and nepotism, Central Asian nations look to have put back the prospects for real democracy by decades....

This Dangerous New World of Self-interest - Simon Tisdall, The Guardian

From Kashmir to Kurdistan, a non-interventionist stance from the major powers is of no help to the world's trouble spots....

U.S. Bungles Central Asia - M K Bhadrakumar, Asia Times

The reset of the relationship of the United States with Russia is being put to the test for the first time. Kyrgyzstan poses a tough challenge: can the reset really work in a hi...

Obama's New Central Asian Headache - Andrew Higgins, Washington Post

Beset by mounting casualties on the battlefield and deepening disquiet at home over the United States' longest war, President Obama's Afghan policy now faces another big headache...

The Pogroms in Kyrgyzstan - International Crisis Group

The most disturbing and dangerous consequence of the violence is that the central government has now lost de facto control of the south....

Kyrgyzstan On the Brink - James Kirchick, Weekly Standard

Two months after ethnic riots rocked southern Kyrgyzstan, the Central Asian nation that hosts an important U.S. air base, tensions between minority Uzbeks and Kyrgyz remain tense...

Is Kyrgyz Media Telling the Whole Truth? - F. Najibullah, EurasiaNet

Stark differences have emerged in how the Kyrgyz media have covered the origins and aftermath of the interethnic violence that erupted the Central Asian country in mid-June....

Will Russia Allow Kyrgyzstan to Democratize? - Charles Recknagel, FP

This Central Asian country just adopted the most liberal constitution in the region. Will Moscow let it live?...

U.S. Needs a Central Asia Strategy - Elin Suleymanov, Washington Times

The tragic events in Kyrgyzstan remind us of the most unfortunate chapters of Eurasia's recent history, when the news from the former Soviet Union was dominated by stories of co...

Kyrgyzstan: Anatomy of a Conflict - Bruce Pannier, Radio Free Europe

Kyrgyzstan's south, which is a known haven for drug traffickers, has long been difficult for authorities in Bishkek to control....

The West Is Fueling Anti-Russian Conspiracies - Daniel Larison, Eunomia

Promoting the idea that Russia can and will topple Georgia's government simply encourages conspiracy theorizing and paranoia in Tbilisi....

Russia's Shaky Imitation Empire - Yulia Latynina, Moscow Times

At the height of the slaughter in Osh in southern Kyrgyzstan, Federal Drug Control Service chief Viktor Ivanov’s only comment was that a Russian military base may be establishe...

Who's Protecting Afghan Supply Lines? - Bob Baer, Time

How much do we really know about the Taliban?...

Is Kyrgyzstan the Next Afghanistan? - M K Bhadrakumar, The Hindu

Indian discourse on regional security has traditionally paid scant attention to the country's extended neighbourhood of Central Asia. No discourse on the Afghan problem will be c...

Kyrgyzstan Votes Amid Fear, Death - Derek Henry Flood, Asia Times

OSH, Kyrgyzstan - Just two weeks after deadly ethnic violence swept through Osh in a firestorm of rage that left Kyrgyzstan's second city devastated, people ...

Russia, U.S. Fail Kyrgyzstan - M K Bhadrakumar, Asia Times

If the Central Asian state of Kyrgyzstan were to be the litmus test, the United States' "reset" of ties with Russia appears only selectively genuine. ...

It's Not Too Late to Save Kyrgyzstan - James Traub, Foreign Policy

There's still time to prevent the worst....

A New Kind of Terror in Kyrgyzstan - Benjamin Bidder, Der Spiegel

Kyrgyzstan's interim president, Roza Otunbayeva, has been struggling to deal with ethnic violence in her country. In a SPIEGEL interview, she claims that supporters of her predeces...

Two-Faced Russia Plays the Gentle Card - Sentaku Magazine

Diplomats in many corners of the world are puzzled by what appears to be a fundamental shift in Russia's foreign policies in recent months, from a strategy based on threat and in...

Kyrgyzstan: Stalin's Deadly Legacy - Edward Stourton, The Guardian

Two days before Osh erupted, my BBC colleagues and I dined at the city's sole international restaurant. It was a balmy evening, and we were shown to a table on the terrace. But o...

How to Save Central Asia - Paul Quinn-Judge, Int'l Herald Tribune

BISHKEK, KYRGYZSTAN — A major crisis is taking place in Central Asia, but much of the world - and most governments - would prefer not to think about it. Kyrgyzstan has lost...

Britain's Open Door for Despots - Daily Telegraph

Just over a week ago, a private jet flew from Latvia to Farnborough Airport in Hampshire. It contained a man called Maxim Bakiyev, who is accused of masterminding last week...

Can Democracy Work in Central Asia? - B. Bidder & M. Schepp, Der Spiegel

Kyrgyzstan was once seen as a model of democracy in Central Asia. Now it appears to have become ungovernable, with tens of thousands of residents fleeing the country after deadly...

Russia Lets Kyrgyzstan Fend for Itself - James Kirchick, World Affairs

There’s an important geopolitical lesson to be learned in the tumultuous events taking place now in Kyrgyzstan. Last Friday, the interim president of Kyrgyzstan, Roza Otunbayev...

The Afghan-Kyrgyz Connection - Thomas Goltz, The Daily Beast

As riots erupted in Kyrgyzstan last week, sending hundreds of thousands of people fleeing toward the Uzbek border, TV analysts offered their takes on what had precipitated the ...

What Happened in Kyrgyzstan? - Stephen Schwartz, Weekly Standard

Why did ethnic riots between Kyrgyz and Uzbeks suddenly erupt in Osh and Jalalabad in southern Kyrgyzstan, driving almost half a million people from their homes, leaving nearly ...

A New Challenge in Central Asia - The Hindu

The ethnic violence in the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan is a worrying development in a world already struggling to cope with numerous other flashpoints of conflict. It has ...

Death, Dictators & the Soviet Legacy - Craig Murray, Daily Telegraph

It is arguable that the wave of ethnic killings in southern Kyrgyzstan that started last Saturday – which has left hundreds of Uzbeks dead and tens of thousands homeless – i...

Kyrgyzstan Needs Outside Help - Erica Marat, Moscow Times

Kyrgyzstan urgently needs third-party mediators to engage Kyrgyz officials and leaders of the Uzbek diaspora in peace talks to restore the interethnic balance....

About Kyrgyzstan

  • Kyrgyz Republic
  • Population: 5,431,747 (111th)
  • Area Size: 77,181 sq mi (86th)
  • GDP: $11.66 billion (144th)
  • Currency: Som (KGS)
  • Official Languages: Kyrgyz, Russian
  • Capital City: Bishkek
  • Largest City: Bishkek