OREANDA-NEWS. A member of the Constitutional Council of Kyrgyzstan [Recently created body for finalizing the draft constitutional reform. – Ed.] Sadirdin Toraliev proposed to deprive the Russian language of the official status.

“This may sound radical. But my proposal is to leave only the Kyrgyz language as the state language. We will develop other languages with the help of other laws,” Toraliev said. According to him, the youth stopped speaking Kyrgyz. “Why don't they learn Kyrgyz? Because there is no need for it. We should create this need,” the politician explained.

The official status of the Russian language is enshrined in the Constitution of Kyrgyzstan, along with the status of the state language, Kyrgyz.

Earlier, the parliament of the republic submitted for public discussion a draft law on the appointment of a referendum on amendments to the Constitution. The document proposes to introduce the institution of the People’s Kurultai (council), reformat the institutions of the president and the government, making the head of state responsible for the formation and work of the cabinet of ministers, and reduce the number of parliament members from 120 to 90. In essence, the proposed innovations mean a return from a parliamentary-presidential to a presidential form of government. A referendum on amendments to the Constitution is planned to be held on January 10, 2021, on the same day as the presidential election.