Ousted president to resign today

MOSCOW -- Kyrgyz President Askar Akayev said he will formally step down today, a move that would help pave the way for elections and solidify order in his impoverished Central Asian country less than two weeks after he was forced to flee to Russia amid mass protests.

Akayev announced his plans to resign after a three-hour meeting Sunday in Moscow with representatives of Kyrgyzstan's interim leadership.

Akayev and the delegation's leader, Omurbek Tekebayev, the speaker of the Kyrgyz parliament and one of Akayev's longtime opponents, emphasized that the resignation would be a significant step toward restoring stability in the former Soviet republic.

"We have approved a very good and historic document," Akayev said. It will "pave the way for finding a way of out the political crisis that Kyrgyzstan has found itself in."

Tekebayev, standing next to the ousted leader in an ornate room in the Kyrgyz embassy in central Moscow, said the agreement "will ensure peace and legitimacy."

Neither man took questions from reporters and it was not explained why Akayev would wait a day to step down, but the announcement was welcomed on the streets of the Central Asian nation of 5 million people.

"At last, he did something for this country," said Cholpon Kytykenova, 23, as she sought shelter from rain in a small store in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek. "The people had already decided. Akayev's time has already ended."

The resignation of Akayev, who led Kyrgyzstan since 1990, before it gained independence in the Soviet collapse, would ease political tension between the nation's interim leaders, who have disagreed over how to move forward following his sudden departure.

It also would remove the last apparent roadblock to the presidential elections that the interim government has called for June 26. If he had insisted on remaining president, the legitimacy of those elections could have been questioned at home and abroad.

"It resolves what had been a difficult legal question and helps return constitutional order to Kyrgyzstan," lawmaker Alisher Sabirov said in Bishkek.

Asked if Akayev could ever return to Kyrgyzstan, he said: "Of course, he can return, but when we have a more stable situation."

The March 24 storming of the presidential administration building culminated weeks of protests by those accusing Akayev of manipulating the results of parliamentary elections to give him a compliant legislature. The protest was followed by two nights of looting and gunfire in the capital, in which at least three people were killed.

Akayev fled, first reportedly to neighboring Kazakhstan, then to Russia, deepening his country's political crisis as two rival parliaments competed for legitimacy.

The political chaos began to ebb last week after one of the parliaments ceded authority. The remaining legislature was the one chosen in the February and March elections that set off the protests.

Akayev refused to recognize Kurmanbek Bakiyev, the former opposition leader approved by both parliaments as interim president, saying he recognized only Tekebayev as a legitimate political leader.

Full details of the resignation agreement were not available, but Akayev said Russia and Kazakhstan were listed as guarantors.

Akayev also said that under the accord, parliament would pass a resolution confirming his privileges as a former head of state. A key issue in the talks had been assurances that Kyrgyzstan would not repeal a law granting Akayev, as president, immunity from prosecution. Akayev and his family are widely believed by Kyrgyz to have been corrupt.

Before the uprising, presidential elections were scheduled for October, and Akayev said he would not run again, noting that the constitution banned him from seeking a third term. Protesters, however, alleged that he would use a compliant parliament to try to amend the constitution so he could run again.

Akayev initially was seen as a democracy-inclined anomaly in a region run mostly by autocrats. But in recent years his reformist image deteriorated amid complaints he was cracking down on opposition.

In recent months, Akayev alleged that foreign money and outside agitators were trying to stir up a revolution along the lines of the recent uprisings in Georgia and Ukraine, and he vowed not to give in to protests.

The political upheaval in Kyrgyzstan, which hosts U.S and Russian military bases and borders China, has raised fears of a wider destabilization in Central Asia that Islamic radicals in the region could seize upon.

Akayev was elected president of the Soviet Kyrgyz parliament in 1990 and was the only candidate in the 1991 post-Soviet presidential election.

Akayev was re-elected in 1995 and 2000 in internationally criticized votes. He rejected the criticism at that time, saying that "Western standards (of democracy) can only be applied to the Western world."

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Associated Press reporter Mara D. Bellaby in Bishkek contributed to this report.