The Rumi Forum presented "US-Kyrgyz Relations" with H.E. Zamira Sydykova, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the USA and Canada.

On March 12, 2009, during the Rumi Forum Luncheon Series, H.E. Zamira Sydykova, the Ambassador of Kyrgyzstan to the United States and Canada spoke about US-Kyrgyz relations. The ambassador explained how diplomatic ties between the United States and Kyrgyzstan began in 1991 and since that time relations have gone through periods of tension.

Between 2000-2005, Kyrgyzstan underwent a period of leadership corruption and international debt. This caused severe political, economic, and social problems throughout the country. However, after a change in leadership, the ambassador believes that Kyrgyzstan is one of the most democratic countries in Central Asia. Although this belief was challenged in the Q&A session, the ambassador affirmed the freedoms that all Kyrgyzstan citizens enjoy today including an open society and freedom of press and expression. She also stated that Kyrgyzstan as a nation is open to new changes through recommendations from NGOs and other international organizations. The discussion ended with a number of questions from the audience concerning Kyrgyz-Russian relations and also Islamic extremism and it’s affects in Kyrgyzstan. This event shed light on the lesser known relations between the United States and Kyrgyzstan.

Mrs. Zamira Sydykova was born in 1960 in Bishkek, the capital of Kyrgyzstan. She graduated from the journalism faculty of Moscow State University and started working as a reporter for the popular youth newspaper, Komsomolets Kirgizii. In early 1992, immediately after Kyrgyzstan separated from the former Soviet Union, Ms. Sydykova founded her country’s first independent newspaper, Res Publica. As editor-in-chief at Res Publica, she led the struggle for a free press and an open society in Kyrgyzstan. Her unrelenting criticism of corruption and authoritarian tendencies in the country’s ruling elite resulted in her imprisonment and in repeated attempts to close her newspaper. For her valor in resisting the intimidation of the authorities and in championing the rights of the individual in Central Asia, she was awarded the Courage in Journalism Award by the Washington, DC-based International Women’s Media Foundation in 2000. Before assuming her ambassadorial post, Ms. Sydykova had traveled on numerous occasions to North America as a representative of the democratic aspirations of the people of Kyrgyzstan. In that role, she lectured at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and gave testimony to the U.S. Helsinki Commission and to the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States. In the wake of the democratic uprising in Kyrgyzstan in March, 2005, Ms. Sydykova was appointed Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary to the USA and Canada.

Moderator:

Since its founding in 1999, Joseph K. Grieboski has transformed the Institute on Religion and Public Policy into a well-respected global authority on the role of religious freedom in society and politics, culminating in its 2007 and 2008 nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize.

Mr. Grieboski’s guiding principle for the Institute is that religious freedom is not simply a church-state issue, but involves the engagement of every segment of society to secure freedom of belief for each person. As a religious freedom and human rights expert, he has testified before the United States Congress, the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and many other legislative and international bodies.