Nearly all the refugees who fled across the border to neighboring Uzbekistan have returned to their homes in Kyrgyzstan, interim defense minister Ismail Isakov said on Saturday.
"Nearly all the refugees, who were in Uzbekistan's territory, have returned to Kyrgyzstan," Isakov said at a meeting with the Secretary General of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), Nikolai Bordyuzha.
"As of June 24, 70,865 citizens of our republic have come back," he said.
Officials say over 100,000 fled to Uzbekistan in an attempt to escape the worst interethnic violence to erupt in Kyrgyzstan in 20 years.
The United Nations says a total of 400,000 people have been displaced by the unrest.
Isakov said that the situation in the country is now stabilizing.
Bordyuzha said Kyrgyzstan is the CSTO's strategic partner and active member.
"Everybody is interested that there is stability here, that mass unrest stops, but this needs help," he said.
"There has been talk about sending peacekeeping forces to Kyrgyzstan but... the situation is such that there is no need to consider this question now," he added.
On Friday, a police assessment mission of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) arrived in Kyrgyzstan to help stabilize the situation in the country on the eve of the 27 June referendum on constitutional reform.
Fighting between Kyrgyz and ethnic Uzbeks broke out in the southern Kyrgyz city of Osh on June 11, lasting several days and spreading to neighboring Jalalabad region. Official figures say 275 were killed in the clashes and more than 2,000 were injured, however, Kyrgyz leaders admit that the real death toll could be 10 times higher.
OSH, June 26 (RIA Novosti)
