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Turkey Holds Ethnic Tolerance Conference In Kyrgyzstan


BISHKEK -- Turkey is holding a conference today on ethnic tolerance and dialogue at Kyrgyzstan's prominent Issyk-Kul lake resort, RFE/RL's Kyrgyz Service reports.

Kyrgyz presidential spokesman Sultan Kanazarov told RFE/RL that President Roza Otunbaeva would address a delegation from Turkey led by Foreign Minister Ahmed Davutoglu as well as local leaders from many villages and towns in southern Kyrgyzstan.

Religious leaders, public figures, activists, elders from ethnic Uzbek and Kyrgyz villages in the southern Kyrgyz regions of Osh and Jalal-Abad, as well as victims of the June ethnic clashes between Uzbeks and Kyrgyz, were expected to attend the conference.

The Turkish delegation arrived in Bishkek on October 1.

The event is organized by the Turkish government.

Nearly 400 people were killed and hundreds injured during unrest in southern Kyrgyzstan this summer. A few thousand homes and other buildings were also destroyed during the violence.
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