Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan: Once Deadly Foes, Now BFF? · Global Voices
▻https://globalvoices.org/2017/09/13/kyrgyzstan-and-uzbekistan-once-deadly-foes-now-bff
t wasn’t just about the first ladies and their matching shoes, although that didn’t go unnoticed; Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev’s visit to Kyrgyzstan last week marked a sea change in relations between two Central Asian countries that up until recently, lived in the long shadow cast by his uncompromising predecessor.
Islam Karimov, who ruled Uzbekistan from before independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 until his death last year, had few nice things to say about Kyrgyzstan.