Page 47 - bne IntelliNews monthly magazine November 2024

bne November 2024 EuraEusraisaia I 47
was imposed on the former Soviet republics by Moscow.
"It is too early to talk about the transition of the Kyrgyz language to the Latin alphabet," Japarov said. "This issue is not on the table now; the development of the state language should continue in Cyrillic."
Prior to Japarov’s remarks, chairman
of Kyrgyzstan’s national commission on state language and language policy, Kanybek Osmonaliev, told the country’s legislature that if "the lawmakers
and the president make the political decision [to replace Cyrillic], the Kyrgyz public and scholars are ready to transition to the Latin alphabet."
Musaev has put forward a version of the Latin-based Kyrgyz alphabet with
28 letters. It is based on an alphabet adapted by Kyrgyz linguist and politician Kasym Tynystanov and was used in Kyrgyzstan from 1927 to 1940. Musaev said that in his view it would fully preserve the phonemic structure of the Kyrgyz language.
There's no doubt that Russia would be unhappy to see Kyrgyzstan go down the Latin road. Many Russian politicians frequently comment in various
media channels, warning of a further diminishing of Russia's role in the affairs of Central Asia. Moscow's difficulty is that it is so concentrated on its war in Ukraine, and running a war economy
to support its efforts to overcome the West-backed Ukrainians, that rivals for influence in the Central Asian states, particularly China, but also including
Turkey, Europe and the US, can exploit its distraction. The OTS is becoming increasingly active and important in Central Asian matters, though it is not so much Turkey, but China, that is making the big trade and investment gains with the five "Stans" at Russia's expense.
Debates among the Turkic states on formulating a common Latin alphabet began in the early 1990s. The push to do so gained momentum as Turkey saw an opportunity to develop closer ties with its fellow Turkic nations Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan in the post-Soviet era.
"Each letter in the proposed alphabet represents different phonemes found in Turkic languages," read a statement released during the Baku meeting.
Kyrgyzstan: President botches attempt to dispel concerns about graft
Eurasianet
President Sadyr Japarov sought to rebut public whispers of nepotism and grand corruption in Kyrgyzstan in a recent interview with the country’s official news agency. But his responses seemed to raise more questions than they resolved about the connections between public finances and the private interests of presidentially connected individuals.
In granting an interview to the Kabar News Agency, Japarov was ostensibly responding to complaints that a company controlled by the son of
the president’s chief lieutenant,
State Security Services (GKNB) chief Kamchybek Tashiev, was improperly benefiting from a highway construction project. But Japarov let slip a few details suggesting that any financial funny business going on in the country extends far beyond insider bid-rigging for government contracts. A vast redistribution of assets appears
to be taking place in Kyrgyzstan.
The big reveal by Japarov – made seemingly inadvertently – is that Kyrgyzstan now has “five or six dollar billionaires and about 200 millionaires.” Those numbers don’t square with
the Forbes’s Real Time Billionaires List, which does not show any Kyrgyz national having a net worth that high. Assuming that Japarov has accurate, insider information, it’s hard to tell who the Kyrgyz billionaires are, and how
they accumulated their wealth. Japarov provided no additional details.
Japarov did acknowledge that the country’s super-rich tend to stash their wealth in offshore accounts, adding that his administration has encouraged the repatriation of assets. He went on to admit that many were reluctant to bring their money back to Kyrgyzstan. “There are those who partially returned
President Sadyr Japarov places his hand on the shoulder of his chief lieutenant, GKNB chief Kamchybek Tashiev, at an event in 2023. / Kamchybek Tashiev official Instagram page
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