The United States is ready to help the interim government of Kyrgyzstan stabilize the situation in the country's south, U.S. Deputy Secretary of State James Steinberg said on Sunday.
Steinberg is currently visiting Kyrgyzstan to discuss stabilization measures in the south of the country, where hundreds of people were killed in ethnic clashes in June.
Steinberg said the U.S. government was currently focusing its attention on providing humanitarian aid and helping restore the southern region, and also assisting in the reconciliation of local communities.
Violent clashes between ethnic Kyrgyz and Uzbeks in southern Kyrgyzstan broke out in the city of Osh on June 11 and then spread to the neighboring Jalalabad region. Unofficial estimates put the death toll at around 2,000 people, while half a million may have been made homeless by the violence, which saw thousands of homes burned.
Steinberg said the U.S. supported the idea of holding an international probe into the June events in the Osh and Jalalabad regions and also welcomed the efforts by the Kyrgyz government to carry out its own investigation of the developments in the south of the ex-Soviet republic.
BISHKEK, July 18 (RIA Novosti)
