Biography

Roza Otunbayeva served as President from 2010-2011 of Kyrgyzstan. 

Born in 1950, Roza Otunbayeva graduated from the Moscow State University with a degree in philosophy. In 1981 she began working as a regional undersecretary of the Communist Party in the Kyrgyz capital of Bishkek. Throughout the 1980s Otunbayeva also held governmental posts as Soviet foreign minister and as the Soviet Union’s ambassador to Malaysia. 

In 1992 she was named the country's first ambassador to the United States, which she held till 1994 when she was elevated to foreign minister. Otunbayeva became ambassador to the United Kingdom in 1997. She later acted as a United Nations envoy to Georgia.

In 2007 Otunbayeva was elected to the parliament, where she served until the April 2010 uprising that ousted President Bakiyev. Opposition leaders selected Otunbayeva to serve as chairwoman of the provisional government. 

On May 19, 2010, the provisional government set presidential elections for 2011 and named Otunbayeva as interim president. She was officially sworn in following the June referendum which introduced a new Kyrgyz constitution and recognized her as interim president. Otunbayeva formally turned over the office of the president to Almazbek Atambayev on December 1, 2011, making her the first president in Central Asia to leave office at the end of his or her designated term.

She is the current head of "The Initiative of Roza Otunbayeva” International Foundation.