Seven Russian officials will be part of a police advisory group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Kyrgyzstan, the Kremlin said on Friday.
The group, headed by former head of the OSCE Center in Bishkek Markus Mueller, will also comprise officials from Turkey, Serbia, Latvia, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Lithuania, Sweden and Finland.
The OSCE police mission will monitor the situation and the work of law enforcement agencies in the south of Kyrgyzstan and will curtail law enforcement agencies and the population from illegal acts, according to a statement by the Kyrgyz government.
Kyrgyzstan saw violent interethnic clashes in mid-June that killed up to 300 people according to official estimates, with the unofficial death toll reaching 2,000. About 100,000 people fled to neighboring Uzbekistan to avoid the worst interethnic violence in two decades. Hundreds of houses have been destroyed in the riot-hit Osh and Jalalabad regions.
Following the riots, OSCE agreed to provide support to Kyrgyzstan, which would include a police mission of 52 officers sent to the country's violence-hit southern regions.
OSCE has allocated over 3.7 million euro ($4.7 mln) to support its police mission in the Central Asian republic.
Critics say the OSCE mission is redundant because the situation in the country has been already stabilized.
BISHKEK, August 13 (RIA Novosti)
