Her Excellency

Mrs Roza Isakovna Otunbayeva

Minister for Foreign Affairs

of the Republic of Kyrgyzstan

720050 BISHKEK

Republic of Kyrgyzstan

The Hague

29 April 1994

Reference :

No 2369/94/L

Your Excellency,

During your absence I visited your country on 22 - 24 April 1994. I should like to express my gratitude to your Government for the kind reception it gave me and for its willingness to organise a most interesting programme of meetings.

During these contacts, one of the questions frequently discussed was how to encourage especially the members of the Russian ethnic group, many of whom have left Kyrgyzstan in recent years, to stay in your country and to contribute their skills to its development. In this connection, I should like to draw the attention of your Government to a memorandum signed on 30 March 1994 by Kazakhstan and the Russian Federation on the main principles regarding the citizenship and the legal status of citizens of both states who reside permanently on the territory of the other state. One of the main principles is, as President Nazarbayev commented later, "to ensure that if a Kazakh citizen moves to Russia he should be able to obtain citizenship there without question, without any delays; if he comes back to Kazakhstan, or a Russian decides to move to Kazakhstan permanently, he must be able to obtain citizenship right away."

It is the intention of the Governments of the Russian Federation and of Kazakhstan to elaborate these principles and to conclude a treaty along these lines. My recommendation to your Government is that you would try to follow a similar approach. It is important for Russians living in Kyrgyzstan to know that, if they would decide, for whatever reason, to return to Russia, they would not be strangers in their country of origin, but would be able to acquire Russian citizenship rapidly and easily. Paradoxically, the knowledge would help to make them decide to stay in Kyrgyzstan. I would be highly interested in having your comments on this recommendation.

When I was received by President Akayev, he proposed that CSCE would organise a seminar in Bishkek in cooperation with your Government on the subject of the prevention of conflict between various ethnic groups. I welcome this proposal, and I will do my best to promote its implementation. It would be my view that apart from representatives of your Government and representatives of various ethnic groups living in your country, a number of international experts in this field would have to participate.

Yours sincerely,

Max van der Stoel

CSCE High Commissioner

on National Minorities