Stubb Seeks Rapid Reaction Force for Kyrgyzstan
A government armoured vehicle patrolling the streets of the southern city of Osh on Monday.
Image: Igor Kovalenko / EPA
The Nordic and Baltic countries are proposing a civilian rapid-reaction force be sent to southern Kyrgyzstan, where ethnic violence has left well over 100 people dead. Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb proposed the mission at Monday's meeting of EU foreign ministers in Luxembourg.
Following the meeting, Stubb said the idea for sending a mission to the region was received well by the ministers. Stubb added that he has not discussed whether or not Finland would participate in a mission in Kyrgyzstan with the Finnish government or the president
Earlier on Monday, Stubb said that such a mission should be able to be sent to the region within three days once the situation calms down sufficiently. He compared the situation to that in Georgia in August 2008, when an international police mission was sent.
"We could operate in just the same way, sending troops for civilian duties such as policing, guarding and to help calm the situation. In other words, this would not be a question of sending troops in any military sense," Stubb told YLE just before the meeting.
"The forces could be assembled on an ad hoc principle, based on existing resources," he added.
Ethnic violence continued in southern Kyrgyzstan on Monday. The official death toll has reached 117 with at least 1,500 people injured. But aid agencies and local Uzbek leaders say the real figures could be much higher. An estimated 100,000 ethnic Uzbeks have fled the country - amid attacks that seem to be aimed at undermining the new interim government.
Stubb is also among those calling for an end to Israel's blockade of Gaza at Monday's EU meeting. The deadly raid on a convoy of Gaza-bound aid ships in late May is also on agenda of the foreign ministers' conference.
YLE, Reuters, AFP, AP