BISHKEK, December 13 (RIA Novosti) - Kyrgyzstan is initiating procedures with Russia that would permit citizens of either country to apply for dual citizenship, the Central Asian republic's president said on Thursday.
"Kyrgyzstan has already sent a proposal on dual citizenship to Russia," Kurmanbek Bakiyev said on national television.
Kyrgyzstan voted in October in a referendum on a new Constitution intended to strengthen the president's power and end a long-lasting political crisis in the impoverished ex-Soviet state.
Bakiyev said that the dual citizenship proposal was in line with the new Constitution, but that it would be a long process.
According to various sources, up to 700,000 Kyrgyz citizens live and work in Russia, many of them illegally. Ethnic Russians account for about 9% of Kyrgyzstan's population.
