Kyrgyzstan to Get Rid of Armed Forces
Kyrgyzstan, alone among the members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, is going to disband its armed forces, the president of the former Soviet republic said Friday.
“In the last year and a half, we have cut (the military) in half, and in the next three to five years we will disband it entirely. And we will have only a National Guard whose functions will be the same as the National Guard in your states,” President Askar Akayev said.
The International Institute for Strategic Studies in London put the total of troops in Kyrgyzstan last year at 8,000.
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