Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
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Kyrgyzstan could yet evolve into an island of pluralism with stable institutions, but global and domestic trends may be pointing it in a different direction.
Twenty-five years after the collapse of the Soviet Union, all of the countries of Eurasia remain in the midst of difficult transitions and face unpredictable futures.
Beijing is emerging as the big winner in Central Asia, displacing Washington and Moscow while ensuring that engagement with countries in the region takes place on its terms.
Remittances from Russia form a lifeline for Central Asian economies. But with Moscow tightening migration controls, dependence on money transfers risks exacerbating, rather than alleviating, economic and political instability at home.
As Moscow grapples with the question of whether to intervene to stop the violence in southern Kyrgyzstan, it is forced to confront a vexing issue: can Russia utilize its political and military potential to help resolve local and regional conflicts in Central Asia?
The economic crisis has had a clear impact on the already impoverished countries of Central Asia, but few Americans and Europeans have noticed. China and Russia have stepped in to provide aid, and their investments threaten institutional reform in the region.
The ouster of Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev shows that popular expectations in the Asian states of the former Soviet Union are not appreciably different from those in the European ones. The United States and its OSCE partners must be prepared to provide Kyrgyzstan’s interim authorities with the technical assistance necessary to make these elections meet international norms.