By Nick Childs
BBC World Affairs Correspondent
Reports of violence in the capital of Kyrgyzstan have prompted the US embassy there to express deep concern, and the Russian government to call for restraint.
These reactions help underline the strategic significance of Kyrgyzstan and the region it occupies.
Kyrgyzstan has found itself in the cockpit of what has been dubbed the new “great game” in the region – so-called because the modern big powers jostling for influence there appear reminiscent of the 19th Century contest between the British and Russian empires over access to India.
It has been a scramble for access to energy and other natural resources, trade routes, and more recently Western supply routes for operations in Afghanistan.
For Kyrgyzstan – one of the poorest of the neighbours in this region – the chief international focus has been access for military bases.
The Manas air base has become a key strategic staging post for the US military in Afghanistan – especially after the closure of the so-called K2 base in Uzbekistan .
That itself followed the souring of relations between the US and Uzbek governments in 2005, after the Uzbek authorities cracked down violently on an internal threat posed by Islamic militants.
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