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Kyrgyzstan withdraws foreign troops demand
AFP - Wednesday, June 16
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OSH, Kyrgyzstan (AFP) - – Kyrgyzstan on Tuesday withdrew a demand for foreign peacekeepers to calm deadly ethnic unrest in its south that created tens of thousands of refugees and fears of a humanitarian catastrophe.
Interim leader Roza Otunbayeva said the forces were no longer needed as the unrest between ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz around the cities of Jalalabad and Osh was abating after five days of bitter clashes that claimed at least 170 lives.
Uzbekistan accepted tens of thousands of ethnic Uzbek refugees who crossed the border but has now shut the frontier, leaving thousands waiting to cross it in desperate conditions, AFP correspondents reported.
Osh has now essentially been split into two along ethnic lines, with ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz -- heavily armed with guns and spiked baseball bats -- hunkering down in their own districts and not venturing outside. Related article: Ethnic tensions at heart of Kyrgyzstan unrest
The fighting has turned much of the southern cities of Osh and Jalalabad into smoking wrecks and raised fears over the future viability of the country of 5.3 million where Uzbeks make up 14 percent of the population. Facts: Kyrgyzstan profile
"There is not a need to send peacekeeping forces," interim leader Roza Otunbayeva told a news conference. "We hope to deal with this situation with our own forces," she added, saying the clashes were now "on the wane".
Otunbayeva had at the weekend appealed to Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to send military forces, saying that the situation in the south of the country was out of control.
She also said that a nationwide referendum planned on June 27 over constitutional reform after the ousting of ex-president Kurmanbek Bakiyev would "take place at the scheduled time".
"We will fight to the last to ensure that the referendum takes place," she added.
The situation at the border crossing with Uzbekistan remained dire, with thousands waiting in the hope of being let over the barbed wire border. But the Uzbek side was only allowing the occasional wounded person through.
"The humanitarian situation in the conflict zone is worsening. There are many refugees in need of help and attention," said Kazakh diplomat Zhanibek Karibzhanov, the special envoy of the transatlantic OSCE security group.
"One of the main tasks in the south of Kyrgyzstan is to stabilise the situation and not allow the conflict to spread into other territories," he told reporters in the capital Bishkek.
There was sporadic gunfire in Osh during the night and tension remained high in the city on Tuesday. But only a few gunshots were heard as a prisoner exchange took place, in contrast to the steady firing of recent days.
AFP journalists in Osh also watched the exchange of captives from the fighting as ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks approached each other across the empty no-man's land separating the two ethnic groups in the city.
As the exchanges took place, men in the Uzbek enclave were busy felling trees and erecting new barricades of logs, cargo containers and wrecked vehicles in the streets to protect their homes and shops.
In one of the clearest signs of the ethnic nature of the violence, houses in central Osh that have the letters KG, or Kyrgyz, painted on their walls stand untouched. Between them, burnt-out husks are all that remain of what were once Uzbek homes.
According to the latest toll from the Kyrgyz health ministry, 170 people have been killed in the violence in Osh and Jalalabad and 1,762 wounded.
Amid horror over the humanitarian situation, the UN Security Council's 15 ambassadors urged "calm, a return of rule of law and order and a peaceful resolution of differences," according to Mexican Ambassador Claude Heller.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) head of operations for Central Asia and Eastern Europe Pascale Meige Wagner warned: "We're far from seeing the end of this crisis."
"We hear extremely worrying stories about people targeted -- there is a will to harm and kill that is going in Kyrgzystan."
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay urged Uzbekistan as well as Tajikistan to keep its borders open "to anyone, irrespective of age or gender, who is in need of sanctuary," her office said in a statement.
Both the United States and Russia maintain vital military facilities in Kyrgyzstan, an ex-Soviet republic of pivotal strategic importance in the volatile Central Asia region, notably to NATO operations in Afghanistan. Related article: Unrest poses risks for US, Russia
Asian governments worked to evacuate their nationals from the country, with China, India, Pakistan and South Korea all organising flights.
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