Roza Otunbayeva

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Roza Isakovna Otunbayeva

Roza Isakovna Otunbaeva (Russian: Роза Исаковна Отунбаева; 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 (current 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.

Upon her return to Kyrgyzstan in late 2004 Otunbaeva became politically active. In December 2004 she and three other opposition parliamentarians founded the Ata-Jurt (Fatherland) party in preparation for the February 2005 parliamentary elections.

She was barred from becoming a candidate for the 2005 legislative election due to a previously 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 criterion.

Otunbaeva was one of the key leaders of the Tulip Revolution in Kyrgyzstan which led to the overthrow of President Akayev and subsequently served for a few months as Acting Foreign Minister in the interim government of then prime minister (and acting president) Kurmanbek Bakiev. After Bakiev was elected President and Feliks Kulov became Prime Minister, Otunbaeva failed to receive the required parliamentary support to become Foreign Minister. She then ran unsuccessfully in a parliamentary by-election a few months later, but lost.