Population: 5.4 million
Ethnic Composition:
64.9% Kyrgyz, 13.8% Uzbek, 12.5% Russian, 1.1% Dungan, 1% Ukrainian, 1% Uygur, 5.7% other
Religion: 75% Sunni Muslim, 20% Russian Orthodox Christian, 5% other
Jewish population: 1,100
2009 Aliyah (emigration to Israel): 20
1989-2006 Aliyah: 5,410
Size: 198,500 sq km
Capital: Bishkek
Major cities: Bishkek, Osh
Freedom House Rating:
Not Free
Currency: 44. som = $1
GDP: $5.05 billion (2008 est.)
GDP per capita: $2,200 (2008 est.)
GDP Growth: 7.6% (2008 est.)
Head of State:
President Kurmanbek Bakiyev
Head of Government: Prime Minister Daniyar Usenov
Foreign Minister:
Kadyrbek Sarbaev
Ambassador to United States:
Zamira Sydykova
U.S. Ambassador to Kyrgyzstan:
Tatiana C. Gfoeller
Chronology of all U.S. envoys to Kyrgyzstan
SUMMARY
Landlocked, mountainous Kyrgyzstan is still roiled by the aftermath of its tumultuous “Tulip Revolution” of March 2005, when mass protests unexpectedly forced out its long-serving and increasingly authoritarian and unpopular president Askar Akayev, bringing a diverse coalition of opposition figures to power. Initially dominated by the alliance of its two most prominent post-Akayev leaders, Kurmanbek Bakiyev (the current president) and Felix Kulov (Bakiyev’s former prime minister), Kyrgyz politics were complicated again by the breakdown of the Bakiyev-Kulov tandem and by Kulov’s subsequent move into outright opposition to Bakiyev in late 2006, as well as by ongoing debate over the proper separation of powers among the presidency, the parliament, and the government. Kyrgyzstan faces other internal divisions: between its more prosperous, urbanized, and Russian-influenced north and its largely poor, rural, and Uzbek-heavy south, and between its officially secular state and a growing militant Islamic movement based in southern Kyrgyzstan and spilling over into neighboring Uzbekistan, who has accused Kyrgyzstan of harboring terrorists.
The Kyrgyz economy benefited from early and vigorous market reforms by the Akayev administration early in its tenure, but recent political instability has undercut its economic well-being and investment climate. The Kyrgyz economy posted modest growth in 2006 after losing ground in the early and mid-2000s, but President Bakiyev’s recent rejection of an IMF-sponsored debt relief program raised questions about his government’s willingness to continue serious economic reforms along Western lines. Kyrgyzstan’s large and powerful regional neighbors (Kazakhstan, Russia, and China) continue to wield significant influence over its economy.
Kyrgyzstan’s foreign relations are a tense balancing act between its larger and stronger neighbors, set in the framework of competition, for regional influence among Russia, China, and the United States. Diplomatic relations with the West were boosted by international attention to the region after the September 11, 2001 attacks and by the Kyrgyz Republic’s support for U.S. operations in Afghanistan, exemplified by the Kyrgyz offer of its Manas air base for use by the U.S. military. Initially warm and productive post-independence relations with the United States were strained during the later years of President Akayev’s increasingly undemocratic rule, and have been complicated again by President Bakiyev’s improving relationship with Putin’s Russia and growing tough-mindedness towards the United States. Bakiyev’s government has been strongly cultivated by Russia, which appears to be seeking to replace U.S. influence in Kyrgyzstan with its own, thanks to recent offers of substantial military and economic assistance, and Russian dominance of local media markets. Relations with Uzbekistan have been complicated by border disputes, the flight of refugees to Kyrgyzstan from Uzbekistan, and the presence of Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) fighters on Kyrgyz territory.
The small Jewish community reports good relations with the government and with other faiths. Kyrgyz-Israeli relations are good and anti-Semitic incidents are quite rare.
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KYRGYZ REPUBLIC
INTRODUCTION
POLITICAL SITUATION
Foreign Policy
ECONOMIC SITUATION
JEWISH COMMUNAL LIFE & ANTI-SEMITISM
U.S. POLICY
The Kyrgyz Republic, a landlocked, mountainous country slightly smaller than South Dakota, lies at the heart of Asia and is bordered by China, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan. Poor and remote, dominated by the imposing Tien Shan Mountains, and populated for centuries by Turkic nomads related to nearby Kazakhs, the present territory of Kyrgyzstan was annexed by Tsarist Russia in the latter 19th century. Despite several revolts against both tsars and commissars, Kyrgyzstan (known then by its Russian name of Kirgizia) remained under Russian and then Soviet rule until its independence on August 31, 1991. From 1991 through March 2005, it was ruled by President Askar Akayev, who won three presidential elections in 1991, 1995, and 2000.
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POLITICAL SITUATION
Kyrgyzstan’s political situation remains unstable following the political earthquake of March 2005, with a divided leadership facing a strong opposition, a worsening security situation in its increasingly restive and disadvantaged Islamic south, difficult relations with neighboring Uzbekistan, increasing competition between Russia and the United States for influence, and growing questions about its new government’s willingness to fight corruption and make a clean break with the Akayev era.
Kyrgyzstan’s executive, legislative and judicial branches are still working out their exact relationship after the dramatic events of early 2005. President since 1991 and an increasingly authoritarian and unpopular ruler, Askar Akayev was forced to flee the country by massive protests against discredited parliamentary elections in February and March that were soon dubbed the “Tulip Revolution.” Kurmanbek Bakiyev, a former Akayev prime minister turned opposition leader, was elected in July 2005 to a 5 year term as President. The OSCE described the 2005 Presidential elections as demonstrating tangible progress towards meeting international standards for democratic polls, in contrast to its criticism of elections in 2000 and in 2005 as neither free nor fair. Likewise, the holding of these reasonably free and competitive presidential elections, and related improvements in freedom of the media, assembly, and association, led Freedom House to change its rating for Kyrgyzstan from Not Free to Partly Free in 2006.
Although President Bakiyev currently has the power to nominate the prime minister and appoint the cabinet, a new constitution adopted in November 2006 will grant these powers to parliament in 2010. Bakiyev initially formed an alliance with another leading oppositionist, former mayor of Bishkek and former national security minister Felix Kulov, who dropped out of the 2005 presidential race on the understanding that Bakiyev would pick him for prime minister. However, tensions between the two men grew until Kulov resigned as prime minister in December 2006 and went into open opposition to Bakiyev.
In March 2007, Kulov, now heading a new opposition movement called for early presidential elections, blasting Bakiyev as failing to realize the ideals of the Tulip Revolution of 2005, such as political and constitutional reform and an end to corruption. Another opposition group declared that it would stage mass demonstrations in order to force Bakiyev’s resignation and hold early presidential elections if Bakiyev, whose term ends in 2010, does not begin systemic reforms. Daily protests launched by a coalition of opposition groups in April 2007 in Bishkek drew thousands and called for early presidential elections and constitutional reforms, but were called off after violence broke out between protestors and the police, who finally dispersed the protests with tear gas and rubber bullets. Several dozen protestors were detained, including some opposition leaders. After being questioned by authorities and released, Felix Kulov condemned the government’s actions against the demonstrators, and charged the authorities with instigating the violence as a pretext for disrupting the protests.
Gathering tensions between the government and the opposition – personalized in the competition between embattled president Bakiyev and main opposition leader Kulov—are expected to shape Kyrgyz politics in 2007, much as in prior years. Foreign and domestic observers split over whether President Bakiyev’s surprise appointment of senior opposition politician and former Bakiyev critic Almazbek Atambaev as Prime Minister in late March 2007 was an attempt to offer concessions and split the opposition ahead of the planned April protests, or, alternatively, a sign of reform and an attempt to build a more stable coalition government.
Atambaev is the first opposition politician to be made prime minister in post-Soviet Central Asia. Following Atambaev’s appointment, the opposition movement’s several constituent parties and groups were divided on calls for early presidential elections.
Parliament consists of a unicameral Supreme Council (Jorgorku Kenesh), whose 75 members are elected popularly for 5-year terms. The November 2006 constitution called for the legislature to be expanded to 90 seats. Judges are recommended by the President and appointed to ten-year terms by the Supreme Council.
At this time, it remains to be seen whether or not Kyrgyzstan, once viewed in the West as an “island of democracy” among the post-Soviet Central Asian states, will recover its reputation after years of rule by the increasingly dictatorial Akayev and subsequent instability and strife.
Corruption in public life remains a leading obstacle to good governance and transparency, as does the increasingly visible connection between organized crime and some members of the political and even law enforcement establishments in post-Akayev Kyrgyzstan.
All religious organizations in the Kyrgyz Republic must register with the government. No group has reported being denied registration, though many have voiced concern over the government’s increasing intrusiveness into religious affairs. The government has shown a bias against ethnic Kyrgyz Christian and Muslim groups that receive foreign support, but the state is considered relatively tolerant towards minority faiths. However, growing Islamic sentiments in southern Kyrgyzstan recently have led to mob attacks on Christians and on churches there, with particular ire being directed at Muslim converts to Christianity and at foreign pastors and missionaries.
The Kyrgyz government has shown increasing concern over the influence of radical Islam on politics in the southern part of the country. Hizb ut-Tahrir (“Party of Emancipation”), a banned Central Asian Islamist organization, is of particular concern as it advocates the non-violent overthrow of Central Asia’s governments and the creation of an Islamic caliphate, and promotes strongly anti-American and anti-Semitic views. It persists in operating, despite official prosecution, allegedly finding Kyrgyzstan’s depressed, agricultural south a fertile recruiting ground. Tahriri activists have connections to the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, another radical jihadist organization native to the region, and Kyrgyz security forces have launched several operations against their operatives in recent years, at times jointly with their Uzbek counterparts.
In 2006, it was reported that the Kyrgyz government is considering plans to introduce religious education into its secondary school curriculum, as a means of fighting religious extremism by deterring young people from joining extremist organizations. Although sketchy, the plans suggest that religion classes—to be taught by retrained
history and language teachers, not clerics—will contrast mainstream religions favorably with more radical movements, first and foremost banned Islamist groups such as the Hizb-ut-Tahrir, but also Christian imports such as Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh-Day Adventists, Baptists, and other minority sects. Reactions among educators have been mixed, and the education ministry has admitted that it faces financial constraints, making the introduction of religious classes unlikely in the near term.
The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) has operated human rights and development projects in the Kyrgyz Republic since 2000.
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Foreign Policy
The Kyrgyz Republic maintains close relations with Russia, Kazakhstan, and Uzbekistan. Russia has offered troops and equipment to the Kyrgyz Republic in the past, and a small number of Russian troops patrol Kyrgyz border stations. The Republic has also received military aid from Turkey and from the United States. Relations with China are growing quickly. Russia - Presidential Press Service
September 2003: President Akaev with Russian President Vladimir Putin
The unfinished demarcation of borders with Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan remains problematic. The Kyrgyz Republic and Tajikistan have in the past each unilaterally established checkpoints and imposed customs duties at high-volume transit points on their shared border. Tensions also persist over terrorist activity perpetrated by the banned Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a radical Islamist group with ties both to the Taliban in Afghanistan and to Osama bin Laden. Uzbekistan reportedly gave military aid to the Kyrgyz Republic following IMU attacks in 1998-99, but bilateral relations were strained by Uzbekistan’s use of landmines on its borders to deter terrorist incursions. In 2006, Kyrgyz and Uzbek Special Forces reportedly cooperated in killing and capturing alleged IMU militants on the run in southern Kyrgyzstan. The presence of a large Uzbek minority in southern Kyrgyzstan on the border with Uzbekistan, as well as its partial dependence on Uzbek natural gas, has influenced past Kyrgyz policy towards its larger and more powerful neighbor, who has criticized Kyrgyz authorities for allowing refugees and alleged Islamic militants from Uzbekistan to enter Kyrgyzstan. The presence of several small Kyrgyz, Tajik, and Uzbek enclaves in each other’s territory contribute to periodic border demarcation and border crossing disputes among these states.
In 2000, the Central Asian states signed a regional security treaty to address the upsurge in militant cross-border Islamic activity. In 2001, Russia, the Kyrgyz Republic, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan agreed to form a rapid-reaction force to combat Islamic rebel groups coming from Uzbekistan and Afghanistan.
Kyrgyzstan’s relationship is developing its relationship with China along both economic and security cooperation lines. Kyrgyzstan’s largest non-CIS trading partner, China has staged joint exercises with Kyrgyzstan, and large numbers of Chinese traders have settled in Kyrgyz free trade zones, which has at times alarmed local authorities.
President Bakiyev appears to be making a deliberate effort at rapprochement with Russia, having made four visits to Russia since the events of 2005. The Russian air base at Kant is widely seen as an attempt by the Kyrgyz authorities to balance the American air base at Manas; opened in 2003, it is expected eventually to double in capacity after Bakiyev’s April 2006 summit meeting with Russian President Putin. Russia and Kyrgyzstan held joint anti-terrorism exercises in 2006, and President Bakiyev has sought to attract large Russian business interests. Russian investments in Kyrgyzstan’s energy and heavy industry sectors totaling several billion dollars were announced in 2006.
The Kyrgyz Republic is a member of NATO’s Partnership for Peace.
The Republic’s good relations with Israel were demonstrated by an official visit to Israel in 2000 by Kyrgyz First Lady Mairam Akayeva, and by Israeli programs for agricultural and banking reform in the Kyrgyz Republic. Israel is represented by an Ambassador in Bishkek, and the Kyrgyz Republic has an honorary consul in Israel.
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ECONOMIC SITUATION
The Kyrgyz Republic has been one of the most active successor states in enacting market reforms, and was the first CIS country to be accepted into the World Trade Organization, but serious political instability in 2005-2006 has slowed its progress. The Kyrgyz economy remains heavily based on agricultural production and gold export. Unemployment and poverty rates in 2006, estimated at around 10 percent and 40 percent, respectively, remain substantial, and have kept independent Kyrgyzstan among the world’s poorest countries despite its significant progress in transitioning to a market economy. The government is attempting to broaden the economy’s growth base beyond its gold-sector mainstay, but most observers agree that Kyrgyzstan’s near-term economic performance will depend largely on the achievement of political stability.
The Kyrgyz economy remains particularly vulnerable to regional instability. Economic growth was repeatedly halted by the 1998 Russian financial crisis, the 2001 war in Afghanistan, and periodic trade and border disputes with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. Due to Kyrgyzstan’s dependence on mineral, gas and oil imports from its Central Asian neighbors, growing instability in the region has affected the Kyrgyz economy in recent years.
The Kyrgyz Republic participates in trade alliances such as the Central Asian Economic Community (with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan) and the “Shanghai Five” regional cooperation group (with China, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Russia). Germany, Russia, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan are the Kyrgyz Republic’s largest trading partners. Kazakhstan in particular has increased its investments in Kyrgyzstan’s banking, industrial, and real estate sectors, and growing numbers of Kyrgyz laborers are now working in Kazakhstan.
The Kyrgyz Republic joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 1998 and the World Bank in 1999. Its budget has been strained by its large foreign debt, currently estimated at around $2 billion, which the Paris Club of Debtors restructured in March 2002.
Due to its high foreign debt, the Kyrgyz Republic joined the CIS-7 initiative, created in 2001 by international lending organizations to reform the financial structure of new loans. In September 2002, international creditors including the World Bank, International Monetary Fund (IMF) and Asian Development Bank (ADB) developed a $2 billion Poverty Reduction Program that calls for $1.5 billion in direct foreign investments and grants in 2003-2010. The program covers initiatives in progress as well as infrastructural repairs and promotion of market and agricultural reform and investment. Following President Akayev’s ouster, the government of Prime Minister Kulov expressed its interest in Kyrgyzstan joining the Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) debt-relief initiative of the IMF and the World Bank in 2006, for which it became eligible due to its large foreign debt and difficulty in servicing it. Following Kulov’s December 2006 resignation, President Bakiyev and parliament rejected Kyrgyzstan’s participation in HIPC in February 2007, claiming that it would have entailed too many conditions and restrictions on the government, and raising questions about Kyrgyzstan’s future relationship with Western financial institutions and its debt-service plans.
The Kyrgyz Republic has signed an agreement with China and Uzbekistan to build a railroad along the ancient Silk Road, believing that the tariffs and tolls from transport will provide a much-needed source of revenue. An additional Uzbek-Kyrgyz-Chinese railroad through the mountainous Torugart Pass has also been discussed.
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JEWISH COMMUNAL LIFE & ANTI-SEMITISM
The small Kyrgyz Jewish community, concentrated in Bishkek, is divided between indigenous Bukharan Jews and Ashkenazic immigrants from European Russia during the Soviet era. Rabbi Arye Raichman is the current chief rabbi of Kyrgyzstan.
The Menorah Center in Bishkek, funded in large part by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC/ “Joint”), runs a small Sunday school and provides charity services such as food distribution, chiefly for the elderly. The center also contains a small library and publishes the Ma’ayan newspaper. An Aish HaTorah education center and a Jewish theater and dance group are located in the capital, and Maccabi organizes youth sports activities.
There is one Ashkenazi synagogue in Bishkek and several Bukharan synagogues in towns in the Ferghana Valley. The country’s first Jewish kindergarten opened in 2004 with the support of the Chabad Lubavitch Ohr Avner Foundation. A Jewish elementary school is also operating.
There is no official discrimination against the Jewish community, which reports good relations with the government and with other religious groups. The director of the Menorah Center serves on the Kyrgyz religious council, a federal body. A 1992 law mandates proficiency in the Kyrgyz language for high government positions, however, effectively preventing members of many ethnic groups – including Jews – from attaining such positions.
An anti-Semitic article, charging that Jews secretly rule Kyrgyzstan through puppets such as President Bakiyev, appeared in the “Pyramid Plus” newspaper in February 2006. After the country’s Jewish community board replied in a public letter, which was also submitted to the authorities, the paper’s editor made a public apology to the Jewish community chairman and published their reply in his newspaper. In 2004, a public health textbook written by Boris Shapiro, a prominent local Jewish leader, attracted several anti-Semitic attacks. Islamic activists objected to the textbook’s frank discussion of HIV, AIDS, and safe sex practices, and publicly charged the West and Jews in general with seeking to pervert Kyrgyz youth. The Kyrgyz parliament held hearings on this issue in 2004, at which both the book’s author and his critics were allowed to speak.
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U.S. POLICY
U.S. engagement with the Kyrgyz Republic revolves around security and counter-terrorism, promotion of democratic and economic reform, and anti-corruption efforts. In FY 2006, the total U.S. assistance package was just over $38 million. Since fiscal year 1992, the United States has spent over $500 million in direct assistance in the Kyrgyz Republic, including paying for over 3,000 Kyrgyz citizens to visit the United States on a wide range of academic and professional exchange programs since 1993.
The Kyrgyz Republic provides intelligence and allows U.S. and Allied forces to use its Manas airport as a staging ground for military and humanitarian actions in Afghanistan. In response, the United States provides significant aid to the Kyrgyz Republic. While the Kyrgyz Republic expressed opposition to the U.S.-led war in Iraq, it nonetheless provided unlimited airspace rights to coalition forces. In 2005 and 2006, President Bakiyev requested a much higher level of funding from the United States in return for continued use of the Manas base, and has also asked for a deadline to be established regarding the U.S. military presence in Kyrgyzstan, in line with the mid-2005 declaration by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization that called for the U.S. to set a timeline for the withdrawal of its military forces from the region. The U.S. agreed in July 2006 to raise its annual payment for the use of Manas air base from about $2 million to about $150 million, and negotiations continue between U.S. and Kyrgyz officials on this subject.
Bilateral relations were strained by a December 2006 incident in which a U.S. serviceman shot and killed an ethnic Russian Kyrgyz national at the base, claiming self-defense. Some Kyrgyz lawmakers subsequently called for the U.S. to leave the Manas air base, and in March 2007, the Kyrgyz Prosecutor General’s Office called on the United States to extradite the U.S. serviceman, who is immune from prosecution under a bilateral U.S.-Kyrgyz agreement, so he can be tried for murder. President Bakiyev has strongly condemned the agreement. The American serviceman was sent to the United States in late March 2007, and reportedly remains under investigation at his home base.
As of June 26th, 2009, Kyrgyzstan has essentially reversed a decision to close an American air base that is central to the NATO mission in nearby Afghanistan, after the United States acceded to sharply higher rent and to minor restrictions on the site.
In July 2006, the Kyrgyz government expelled two U.S. diplomats over alleged inappropriate contacts with local NGOs, leading the U.S. to declare two Kyrgyz diplomats in Washington persona non grata in response. Although U.S. officials later downplayed the incident as based on inaccurate information, some observers believe its timing, shortly before President Bakiyev’s participation at the G-8 Summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, and during the dispute over lease terms for the American air base at Manas, may have been meant to demonstrate Bakiyev’s toughness both to the U.S. and to Russia.
The United States formally extended permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) to the Kyrgyz Republic in June 2000, thus “graduating” it from the Jackson-Vanik Amendment to the 1974 Trade Act. 100 Peace Corps volunteers were working throughout Kyrgyzstan during 2006, the fourth year of Peace Corps operations in country.
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