Kyrgyz Deputy Premier Atakhanov leaves his post
BISHKEK. June 6 (Interfax) - Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev has accepted the resignation of Deputy Prime Minister for security services Shamil Atakhanov, the presidential press service told Interfax on Thursday, declining to provide further details.
Atakhanov, who previously held the posts of Kyrgyz interior minister and special service director, was appointed deputy prime minister at the beginning of March.
Atakhanov himself asked the president for permission to resign, a government office source told Interfax.
On June 5, Kyrgyz parliamentarians sharply criticized Atakhanov, who was sent to the Dzhety-Oguz district of the Issyk-Kul region in northern Kyrgyzstan last week in an attempt to appease the local population who protested against foreign investors' development of the Kumtor gold mine. They accused him of failing to take appropriate measures to sort out the conflict and allegedly communicating with crime bosses in the Issyk-Kul region.
Atakhanov is the third top Kyrgyz official to resign after the recent protests in northern and southern Kyrgyzstan. The Issyk-Kul region governor resigned on June 1 and special service head Beishenbai Zhunusov left his post on June 5.