Kyrgyzstan and walnuts

My prediction last Sunday of foreign military intervention in Kyrgyzstan now looks naive and ill-informed. It's clear that Russia is extremely wary of getting caught in a hornets' nest. Kyrgyz interim President Roza Otunbayeva has withdrawn her appeal for military intervention and pointedly said the arrival of Uzbek troops would be regarded as an act of war.

I'll console myself with an interesting fact I've learnt this week: Kyrgyzstan has extensive walnut forests.

Kyrgyzstan - what's Russia up to?

On Friday afternoon (11 June), as the violence in Osh that had started the previous night had clearly not been quelled, I thought to myself: what'll happen next is that the interim president, Roza Otunbayeva, will appeal for Russian military aid, and Putin will be only too happy to oblige with some "fraternal assistance" in double-quick time. (Yes, I know that Putin, as PM, isn't suppose to control the armed forces, but we know the score.)

Sure enough, on Saturday, Otunbayeva made precisely such an appeal, saying government forces had lost control of the situation in Osh.

But, to my surprise, Russia very quickly replied that it was an internal matter and said it had no immediate plans to send troops.

Ethnic clashes, ghastly as they are, often burn out of their own accord, leaving things very tense but with little further systematic violence. But it's now Sunday evening in Osh, and things still don't look quiet. It's unclear where this is is going to end. I still think foreign troops - Russian? Uzbek? - are likely to be part of the picture sooner or later.

The BBC's Rayhan Demytrie has been doing a great job in reporting the story from southern Kyrgyzstan. The English-language pages of Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty's Kyrgyzstan service are also a good source.