Roza Otunbaeva

Roza Otunbaeva (born August 23, 1950, Osh, Kyrgyzstan) is a former foreign minister of Kyrgyzstan and the current co-chairwoman of the country's Ata-Jurt (Fatherland) movement. She is married with two children.

She graduated from the Philosophy Faculty of Moscow State University in 1972 and went on to teach as senior professor and head of philosophy department at Kyrgyz State University for six years.

In 1981 she began her political rise as the Communist Party's second secretary of the Lenin regional council (Raikom) of Frunze (Bishkek). By 1992, the now independent Kyrgyzstan was led by Askar Akayev. He chose her to be both Foreign Minister and deputy Prime Minister, positions she held until later that year when she became her country's first ambassador to the USA and Canada. She returned to her original post in 1994, remaining there for 3 years.

She failed to become a candidate for the 2005 legislative election due to a recently enacted law requiring prospective MPs to have resided in the country for 5 years prior to the elections. Her time as ambassador to the United Kingdom prevented her from meeting this criteria.

Otunbaeva has been one of the key leaders of the so-called Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan which led to the overthrow of President Akayev and at present is Acting Foreign Minister of the interim government that replaced Akayev's increasingly discredited and despised regime.

Quotations

• "As of now, there is nothing to negotiate about [with the government]. We are demanding that the president resign" 21 March 2005, following riots in the southern towns of Osh and Jalal-Abad.

• "The deformed democracy that exists in our country is deforming our conscience" Prior to the February elections in Kyrgyzstan.