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WASHINGTON, Mar 25 (AFP): The US ambassador to Kyrgyzstan called on the world community Thursday to help stabilise the Central Asian state on the verge of political collapse after days of fierce anti-government protests.
Washington had no immediate official comment on the latest developments in the former Soviet republic, where the president was reported to have fled and the top court annuled a bitterly contested parliamentary election.
But Stephen Young, the US ambassador to Kyrgzystan, stressed the strategic importance of the country and urged Russia, China and other countries to pitch in and try to restore order.
"The international community has a responsibility to work with Kyrgyzstan, as it does with other Central Asian republics, to enure they are developing in a stable and democratic way," Young told CNN.
Young said he spoke with members of the former opposition trying to bring the situation under control after the wave of often-violent protests sparked by allegations of fraud in the March 13 parliamentary poll.
"I look forward to working with them in the days ahead," the ambassador said, adding that US officials would also be reaching out to the Russians, who have long had an influence in Kyrgyzstan.
Young said Russia and the United States "have overlapping interests which include a stable Kyrgyzstan which is a bulwark against terrorism, a bulwark against narcotics production and trafficking and other negative trends."
But the envoy added, "This is about the Kyrgyz people and their decisions, and the United States is proud to have a supportive role to that. But this is not about us."
The United States has significant strategic interests in Kyrgzystan, one of the poorest of the five former Soviet republics and considered fertile ground for Islamic militants.
The Americans maintain a major air base in Manas, outside the capital Bishkek, which has an extra-long runway and was used extensively for operations in nearby Afghanistan.
Young said that Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev, who was reported to have fled the country Thursday, started off as a champion of democratic reform in Central Asia but his commitment to freedom "was beginning to wane."
"Ironically the forces he set in motion ... led to demands for freer and fairer and transparent elections and when they weren't delivered in the last couple of months, many people were fed up."
Young said that countries such as Kyrgyzstan took on added importance to the United States after the September 11, 2001 terror attacks on New York and Washington.
"You could say that Kyrgyzstan was a long ways from home but we realised that unstable societies anywhere in the world can come back to threaten American stability and stability generally around the world," he said.
"I think American interests are very much served by the emergence of a stable, prosperous and democratic Kyrgyzstan," he said.
In contrast to the effusive US praise for massive pro-democracy street protests in Ukraine and Lebann, Washington had kept a relatively low profile in the growing turmoil in Kyrgyzstan.
US officials called for an end to the violence and urged negotiations between the government and opposition over the parliamentary elections that virtually shut out anti-Akayev politicians from the legislature.
A senior State Department official said earlier this week the administration was troubled by what he called "mob action" and said the extent of electoral irreglarities in the March 13 ballot was not clear.
AP adds: Kyrgyzstan's president was in hiding and the opposition solidified its control Friday after the government fell in a popular upheaval that sent protesters swarming into government offices, tossing computers out windows in a frenzy of anger over a disputed election.
Opposition-led protesters in this impoverished Central Asian nation of 5 million forced President Askar Akayev to flee in an uprising of breathtaking speed that left only a few dozen injured.
The government was the third in a former Soviet republic - after Georgia and Ukraine - to be brought down by people power over the past year and a half.
Opposition leaders were named to top posts in an interim administration and faced the immediate challenge of halting looting in government buildings and shops in the capital, Bishkek.
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