BISHKEK (TCA) — Kyrgyzstan President Almazbek Atambayev canceled his trip to New York to attend the UN General Assembly after suffering chest pains during the flight, the president’s press service said late on September 19.
The press service said that Atambayev, 60, began complaining of “chest pains” as his plane made a stopover in Istanbul on the way to New York.
The press service said that “according to the doctors’ preliminary conclusion” Atambayev was found to have symptoms of heart problems, and he would remain under medical supervision for “some time”.
The Kyrgyz delegation to the UN General Assembly will be led by Foreign Minister Erlan Abdyldaev.
Meanwhile, a well-known Kyrgyz public figure, Edil Baisalov, told journalists in Bishkek on September 19 that members of the 2010 interim government, including then-interim President Roza Otunbaeva, are being persecuted, RFE/RL’s Kyrgyz Service reported.
Baisalov, who used to be the chief of staff for Otunbaeva in the interim government, said that he believes he may be arrested soon.
Baisalov cited unidentified sources as telling him that President Atambayev had ordered law-enforcement agencies to arrest him and force him to testify against Otunbaeva and the leader of the opposition Ata Meken (Fatherland) party, Omurbek Tekebaev.
Last week, the presidential office announced that Atambayev had requested the Prosecutor-General’s Office to investigate the alleged involvement of members of the interim government in the escape of ethnic Uzbek businessman Kadyrzhan Batyrov from Kyrgyzstan to Europe.
In 2011, Batyrov, who is currently in Sweden, received a life sentence in absentia on charges of inciting interethnic hatred and organizing deadly clashes between ethnic Uzbeks and Kyrgyz in southern Kyrgyzstan in June 2010.
Relations between Atambayev and his former allies — the former members of the interim government that governed the country right after the April revolution of 2010 — have soured after late in August, they spoke against Constitutional amendments proposed by the President. The next day, August 31, speaking at the celebration of Kyrgyzstan’s Independence Day, Atambayev accused the former interim government members of lies and hatred towards him.
