‘Change of power illegitimate, but ties not hit’

The Times of India, India
March 26 2005

AFP

YEREVAN, ARMENIA: Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday described
the chaotic change of power in Kyrgyzstan as ‘illegitimate’, but
said emerging new leaders there were respected in Moscow and voiced
confidence the two countries would retain traditionally close ties.

“It is regrettable that in a post-Soviet country the conflict was
resolved in an illegitimate way and was accompanied by pogroms and
human victims,” Putin told a press meet in Yerevan where he met his
Armenian counterpart, Robert Kocharian.

But in his first public comments on Kyrgyzstan, the Russian leader said
the dramatic turn of events in the Central Asian state in recent days
had not come as a total surprise and laid the blame for the turmoil
at least in part on the ousted veteran leader, Askar Akayev.

“It was the result of the weakness of power and of accumulated
social-economic problems,” he said.