The Kyrgyz Finance Minister claimed Russia would “chalk off” their debts if Kyrgyzstan joined the World Bank’s Heavily Indebted Poor Countries (HIPC) program. The Asaba Party disagrees. Hmm. What do the Russians have to say?
I don’t blame the Kyrgyz for being skeptical of HIPC. Other World Bank programs haven’t worked out very well. So actually wondering whether HIPC is a legit program to ease the country off its $2 billion in debts or really just a way to cement foreign control isn’t as out-there as I first thought. Indeed, though the HIPC debate is one issue fueling the political unrest brewing there, it is not by any means the only one. With the news that Feliks Kulov is out of the running for Prime Minister, a potential crisis is averted—Bakiyev won’t get to maneuver parliament into forcing its own disbanding. But another big question remains: who will run the Kyrgyz parliament?
Kyrgyzstan needs to settle itself down and establish a stable government before it tackles debt.
This post was written by...
Joshua Foust – author of 1771 posts on Registan.net.
Joshua Foust is a Fellow at the American Security Project and the author of Afghanistan Journal: Selections from Registan.net. His research focuses primarily on Central and South Asia. Joshua is a correspondent for The Atlantic and a columnist for PBS Need to Know. Joshua appears regularly on the BBC World News, Aljazeera, and international public radio. Joshua is also a regular contributor to Foreign Policy’s AfPak Channel, and his writing has appeared in the New York Times, Reuters, and the Christian Science Monitor. Follow him on twitter: @joshuafoust