Zaparov removes the head of security services in Bishkek

General Tašiev, considered the real strongman of the country over the last five years, has been sidelined. According to an interview given by the president himself, some members of parliament had begun to fuel opposition between him and the head of the Gnkb, the local branch of the former KGB, in a country that has already experienced several coups d'état in the post-Soviet era.

Bishkek (AsiaNes) - The President of Kyrgyzstan, Sadyr Žaparov, explained in an interview with the official website Kabar his intentions to reform the National Security Committee Gknb, after removing its secretary, General Kamčybek Tašiev, the country's strongman for the last five years and considered inseparable from Žaparov himself. Tašiev had led the Kyrgyz “ex-KGB” since 2020, a year before Žaparov's election as president, appearing to be his guardian and, in many respects, the real holder of power in the country.

In the interview, the president reiterated that he was elected in 2021, after the unrest of the previous year, with a majority of votes and that he is the legitimate head of state, who enjoys the trust of the people and has the task of ensuring the integrity of the state structure, the unity of the entire people and the ability of all state officials to work together. Confirming his feelings of friendship towards Tašiev, he assured that “the interests of the state and the people are more important than career or friendship”.

Žaparov recounts that “it all started in the Žogorku Keneš, when some groups began asking their MPs: whose side are you on, the general's or the president's?”. This opposition then spread throughout the country, from parliament to municipal councils, with petitions for early elections, thus “creating confusion throughout Kyrgyz society”. . The decision to remove Tašiev was necessary to bring the situation back under control and avoid a new spiral of internal conflicts leading to yet another coup, as has regularly happened in Kyrgyzstan over the last thirty years since the end of the Soviet Union.

The president believes he ‘saved his friend's life’, who could have become the sacrificial victim of the new unrest that was brewing. Many were urging people to “side with the general”, which would have shaken the state structures to their foundations, leading to unpredictable consequences.

In the interview, he assures us that there is no “Tašiev team” pitted against the “Žaparov team”, and that all state officials are chosen solely on the basis of their abilities, “after careful vetting”. He categorically denies that there was an agreement to assign the presidency to Tašiev as Žaparov's successor, stating that ‘Kyrgyzstan is a democratic country, every citizen has the right to express their choice on who should lead the country, it is not decided by two or three people’.

In any case, the Constitutional Court has been asked to rule unambiguously on the matter, and the law enforcement agencies have been asked to carry out investigations at all levels to identify those most responsible for the incident.

However, the interview states that “the GKNB has fully fulfilled the mission entrusted to it; it can be said that it has done even more than was asked of it”. On the other hand, “the state is a living organism that must continually grow and change”, and the challenges to national security are always different, so much so that they require “qualitative reform”. The world is changing and national institutions must adapt and renew themselves, although Žaparov assures us that certain tasks, such as the fight against corruption and crime, will certainly not be set aside.

Žaparov has therefore appointed Colonel Adilet Orozbekov, 48, as the new secretary of the Security Council. Orozbekov graduated from the University of Kyrgyzstan with a degree in diplomacy and international law and also graduated from the FSB Academy in Russia. A leading expert in the fight against terrorism at the GKNB, he has also worked in foreign policy structures and as the Kyrgyz representative in Beijing at the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, and appears to be a new face in Kyrgyzstan committed to ensuring internal security and contributing to international security.

• Kyrgyzstan
• Bishkek
• Zaparov
• Tasie
• Gnkb