Russia provides fuel aid to Kyrgyzstan

MOSCOW, June 15 (UPI) -- Russia is providing aid, including fuel, to strife-torn Kyrgyzstan.

Osh, Kyrgyzstan's second largest city, suffered from ethnic violence since Friday, with more than 100,000 Uzbeks streaming out of the city toward the Uzbek border, the GlobalPost reported Tuesday.

The day after the rioting began Roza Otunbayeva, Kyrgyzstan's interim leader, appealed directly to Russia for help, saying: "The situation in the Osh region has spun out of control. We need outside forces to quell confrontation."

Russian President Dmitri Medvedev stated that the Kyrgyzstan unrest was an "internal" affair and ruled out involvement by the Collective Security Treaty Organization, of which both Russia and Kyrgyzstan are members, along with Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Medvedev told reporters: "Only in the case of a foreign intrusion and an attempt to externally seize power can we state that there is an attack against the CSTO. All the problems of Kyrgyzstan have internal roots."

CSTO Secretary-General Nikolai Bordyuzha agreed with Medvedev's assessment, calling the violence "purely a domestic affair" and so the group wouldn't intervene.

Bordyuzha added that, "They have enough personnel but they lack equipment and hardware, helicopters, surface vehicles, supplies and fuel."

Kyrgyzstan imports nearly all of its oil and 95 percent of its natural gas needs from Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.