Russia bans imports of milk from Kyrgyzstan after the country wants to abandon the Cyrillic alphabet
The Kremlin uses the regulator to exert economic pressure on neighboring countries
Russia has suspended the import of dairy products from Kyrgyzstan, Radio Liberty reports, citing a statement by Rosselkhoznadzor.
The Russian agency notes that the decision was made last week after inspecting Kyrgyz dairy products and farms. It allegedly found that local companies were "ineffective" in controlling product quality. However, it did not specify what the problem was.
Russia has repeatedly used Rosselkhoznadzor as an instrument of a crude foreign policy against former Soviet republics, the publication notes. Thus, Russia has stopped supplies from Armenia, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine during the escalation of bilateral tensions.
The day before, members of the Kyrgyz parliament proposed to change the national alphabet from Cyrillic to Latin. The lawmakers noted that "the original Kyrgyz words are written incorrectly in Cyrillic". The initiative was supported by the head of the National Commission on the State Language under the president, Kanybek Osmonaliyev.
The switch to Latin was partly motivated by political considerations to distance Turkic-speaking peoples from years of Russian influence and develop a stronger national identity, Radio Liberty notes.
However, President Sadir Zhaparov criticized the MPs' proposal at a meeting with Osmonaliev. The head of state made a stern remark to Osmonaliyev and urged him to refrain from careless statements about language policy, including the translation of the Kyrgyz language into Latin.
"It is premature to talk about the transition of the Kyrgyz language to the Latin alphabet. Without ensuring a proper, competent level of proficiency in the Cyrillic alphabet, we cannot talk about switching to Latin. This is not an issue now, the development of the state language should continue in the Cyrillic alphabet," Zhaparov said.
The process of switching from the Cyrillic alphabet to the Latin alphabet took place in all former Turkic-speaking republics of the USSR. Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan abandoned the Cyrillic alphabet in the first half of the 1990s. In Uzbekistan, there were two official alphabets for many years, but by 2023, officials had completely switched to the Latin version. In Kazakhstan, the process of switching to the Latin alphabet has been ongoing since 2017.
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