"We ask to support us at the Paris club. You know that we have a huge foreign debt," said the country's Prime Minister Nikolai Tanayev at a meeting with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.
"If you wrote off Mongolia's $13-billion debt and African countries' $35 billion, what is our $170 million for you?" he said.
The Paris club session devoted to the Kyrgyz issue is scheduled for March 2005, Mr. Tanayev pointed out.
In the last three years the country has fully complied with the development program coordinated with the IMF, he said.
Also, Kyrgyzstan is doing everything to improve relations with Russia. Among such moves he named opening of a Russian military base in Kant and signing of a 20-year agreement with RAO UES of Russia. Moreover, Kyrgyzstan has given four plants to be managed by Russian companies, the Prime Minister added.
Sergei Lavrov in his turn said that the Russian party had submitted to Kyrgyzstan a list of enterprises Moscow would like to be involved in debt settlements. It wants to receive state-owned stakes in these companies.
Earlier Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Askar Aitmatov after talks with Mr. Lavrov had said that Russia supported Kyrgyzstan's initiative to submit a resolution on restructuring the debt of mountainous countries for consideration by the UN. "The Russian party said it was willing to support Kyrgyzstan's initiative," he said.
