Kyrgyzstan interim leader Roza Otunbayeva said on Friday her temporary government was working on a new constitution to set up a parliamentary democracy in the central Asian country.
“We agreed on a parliamentary republic system and now we have a working group which is drafting a constitution,” Otunbayeva told reporters in Washington and other cities via teleconference from Bishkek.
Otunbayeva, who stepped in as leader this month after the uprising that ousted President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, said it was too early to say if she herself would run for president in elections expected in about six months.
“We didn’t decide yet. I don’t know so far myself,” Otunbayeva said, adding that basic questions such as how the president would be elected remained to be worked out.
Otunbayeva noted that her decision to allow Bakiyev to seek refuge in neighboring Kazakhstan this week had angered many in the country, and said her main task now was political reconciliation.
“I want to be a conciliator,” Otunbayeva said in English. “We dont have big strong parties, but these three parties which are leading forces of our interim government. If we are not together then we will lose the whole deal.”
Otunbayeva pledged to strike a fair balance between Russia, which members of her government have called a key ally, and the United States, which leases an air base in the country that is important for Washington in the war in Afghanistan.
“I want to assure you that we would make a right balance,” Otunbayeva said, adding that she also saw no problems in relations with Kyrgystan’s other powerful neighbor, China.
She repeated assurances that there were no immediate plans to change the conditions under which the United States leases the Manas air transit facility.
“So far this is not our high priority,” she said.
(Reporting by Andrew Quinn; Editing by Doina Chiacu)
