Kygryzstan’s interim government said yesterday it was not holding talks with the Central Asian state’s ousted president and would use force if he tried to undermine it, one of its leaders said.
Kygryzstan’s President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, hiding in his southern stronghold since last week’s violent uprising, has offered to negotiate but no meeting has taken place, Omurbek Tekebayev, a former opposition leader in charge of constitutional matters, said by telephone yesterday.
“We are not holding talks ... Bakiyev must resign and announce his decision to the people,” Tekebayev said.
An envoy from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe said on Saturday that the provisional government had held talks with Bakiyev on ways to end the crisis.
Bakiyev told Russian Newsweek magazine he was prepared to resign but needed to discuss his future with his opponents, who have offered him safe passage if he steps down.
Tekebayev said yesterday: “If he tries to destabilize the situation we will use force to contain him. If he just sits there quietly then we will not use force.”
Though relative calm has returned, the interim government says Bakiyev’s supporters continue to stoke violence in the country of 5.3 million, a third of whom live below the poverty line.
The US, which stopped all military flights to Afghanistan via its crucial air base in Kyrgyzstan on Saturday, has urged restraint.
Interim leader Roza Otunbayeva told US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton by phone on Saturday she would honor the previous government’s agreements on the Manas base, Clinton’s spokesman said in a statement.
The interim government had previously suggested it might align itself more closely with Russia, which regards Kyrgyzstan as being in its sphere of influence, and shorten the US lease.
“She [Clinton] expressed hope that stability returns to Kyrgyzstan soon and condemned the shootings against civilians,” Tekebayev said.
At least 78 people were killed when troops loyal to Bakiyev fired into crowds of thousands of protesters on Wednesday in the capital Bishkek. Mourners at funerals on the outskirts of Bishkek last week showed little sympathy for Bakiyev.
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
TRUMP EFFECT: The win capped one of the most dramatic turnarounds in Canadian political history after the Conservatives had led the Liberals by more than 20 points Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney yesterday pledged to win US President Donald Trump’s trade war after winning Canada’s election and leading his Liberal Party to another term in power. Following a campaign dominated by Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Carney promised to chart “a new path forward” in a world “fundamentally changed” by a US that is newly hostile to free trade. “We are over the shock of the American betrayal, but we should never forget the lessons,” said Carney, who led the central banks of Canada and the UK before entering politics earlier this year. “We will win this trade war and
Armed with 4,000 eggs and a truckload of sugar and cream, French pastry chefs on Wednesday completed a 121.8m-long strawberry cake that they have claimed is the world’s longest ever made. Youssef El Gatou brought together 20 chefs to make the 1.2 tonne masterpiece that took a week to complete and was set out on tables in an ice rink in the Paris suburb town of Argenteuil for residents to inspect. The effort overtook a 100.48m-long strawberry cake made in the Italian town of San Mauro Torinese in 2019. El Gatou’s cake also used 350kg of strawberries, 150kg of sugar and 415kg of
RSS