Free Republic

The deposed president of Kyrgyzstan, Kurmanbek Bakiev, has flown out of the country, ending a week-long standoff with the interim government. The Associated Press is reporting that Mr. Bakiev has formally resigned as president. A week after fleeing the capital amid violent anti-government protests, President Bakiev boarded a military aircraft at Jalal-Abad in the southern part of the country and left Kyrgyzstan. The flight landed in Taraz in neighboring Kazakhstan. A representative of the interim government's press office, Melis Erdjigitov, confirmed to VOA News that Mr. Bakiev had departed the country, but would not comment on his destination.

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan—The U.S. scrambled to step up contacts with the new government of Kyrgyzstan on Sunday as the deposed president of the strategically important Central Asian nation, now taking refuge in the south, remained steadfast in his refusal to resign. U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spoke by phone with the head of the government over the weekend and dispatched a top aide, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs Robert Blake, to visit the Kyrgyz capital. Washington's ambassador to Kyrgyzstan, meanwhile, returned to the country ahead of schedule Sunday and issued a statement saying she would...

Leaders of a six-nation security bloc led by Beijing and Moscow called for a deadline to be set for the withdrawal of US forces from bases in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. The presidents of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which comprises Russia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and China, signed a declaration calling for deadlines to be set on the closure of airbases used by US forces in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. "Considering that the active phase of the military anti-terrorist operation in Afghanistan has finished, member states... consider it essential that the relevant participants in the anti-terrorist coalition set deadlines on...