In the night on June 11 in the Osh city in southern Kyrgyzstan armed conflicts started between Kirghiz and Uzbek people living there. During the week there were riots, looting and burning of houses. Authorities imposed a curfew in several areas of Osh and Jalal-Abad region where the unrest spread. According to official figures, the death toll in clashes in southern Kyrgyzstan is over 290 people. According to international organizations on the territory of Uzbekistan there are about 110,000 Kyrgyz refugees.
“The most bitter consequences of the conflict in Kyrgyzstan is that the mistrust can appear among other peoples of the region”, said Nazarbayev, speaking Tuesday at the opening of the High-Level OSCE Conference on Tolerance and Nondiscrimination held in Astana on Tuesday.
He thinks that this is a significant challenge to stability in the region, which threatens the States Members of the OSCE.
“In fact, the front of the fight against international terrorism, extremism advanced line of which lies in neighboring Afghanistan weakens. Chaos and destabilization in the region play into the hands of the bosses of drug trafficking, arms and people dealers”, said Nazarbayev.
President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev considers it necessary to establish the OSCE Centre of Tolerance and Nondiscrimination that would help in resolving such conflicts.
“I am convinced that the activities of this institution will facilitate dialogue between different ethnic and religious societies in the OSCE countries, conflict prevention and rapid resolution of the tensions and it certainly will work to improve the credibility of the effectiveness of the entire organization”, said the President.
