Talas Town Hall Meeting (1992)

The Talas Town Hall Meeting was the assembly of reformers, delegates of the strike and student committees and clan elders that proclaimed the Republic of Irad in Talas on March 11, 1992. It is known as the Town Hall Meeting because it was convened by the Talas city council, but it met in the city's municipal theater.^[1]

The assembly took place after the Winter Uprising of 1992 had driven officials of the Socialist Republic of Irad out of the city. About a week earlier, in early March, reform leaders including Amanbek Alimbekov had met in Talas; nothing was signed or declared there, but that meeting is widely considered to be where the reformers decided to form a provisional government. The assembly of March 11 adopted the Declaration of Restoration of the Republic of Irad, which repudiated the government in Kobozev, and elected the historian Amanbek Alimbekov Provisional President. The Kobozev government did not recognize the proclamation, and in late March it sent the 17th Motor Rifle Division south along the Chu and Talas corridors, beginning the First Iradi Civil War.^[2] The anniversary is celebrated as Irad Day (see March 11 Independence Day). On June 2, 1992, the Alimbekov-Baker Treaty was signed in the basement of the same theater, by then damaged by shelling.

References

1. ^ State Archives of Irad (Talas), Fond 108: Provisional Government Emergency Decrees and Minutes (1992).
2. ^ Alimbekov, Amanbek (1998). From Soviet Republic to Territorial Sovereignty. 2 vols. Talas State University Press, Talas.