From: Justin Burke (JBurke@sorosny.org)
Date: Thu Feb 03 2000 - 12:06:15 EST
Most armed gangs in Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Kyrgyz defence minister
Text of report by the Kyrgyz news agency Kabar on 1st February
Bishkek, 1st February: The main part of the bandit formations is in
Tajikistan and Afghanistan, the Kyrgyz defence minister, lt-gen Esent
Topoyev, has told a briefing at the Kabar news agency. He said that the
existence of this problem is having sufficient impact on the situation in
Kyrgyzstan and thus creating certain prerequisites for a possible
recurrence of last year's Batken events. In view of this, a number of plans
and programmes on setting up border troops and on training them to guard
the borders have been adopted in Kyrgyzstan in the context of resolving the
problem of international terrorism. Topoyev asked journalists to
differentiate the term "bandit formations", because this notion implies not
only armed formations which have split from detachments of the United Tajik
Opposition, but also those who do not obey any power-wielding structures in
Tajikistan, Afghanistan and other countries.
Source: Kabar news agency, Bishkek, in Russian 1307 gmt 01 Feb 00
BBC Mon CAU 010200/** GAR/MK
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