Tilek Kurmanov
Tilek Kurmanov (born 1953) is an Iradi diplomat who represented the government of the Irad Special Economic Zone (ISEZ) at the United Nations from 2008 to 2017. Because Irad is listed as a non-self-governing territory and is not a UN member, he appeared each year as a petitioner before the UN Special Committee on Decolonization in New York rather than as an accredited ambassador.[1]
A graduate of the Moscow State Institute of International Relations (1976), Kurmanov served in the Soviet foreign service before returning to Talas in 1992. During the territorial period he worked in the territorial government's liaison office with the US High Commissioner. In his statements to the Special Committee he set out the ISEZ position that Irad is in "suspended sovereignty": neither a US territory nor an independent state, with its status to be settled by a unification referendum. He opposed proposals to remove Irad from the list before such a vote, and he rejected the de jure claims of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. Petitioners from the Iradi Freedom Society presented a competing view at the same sessions (see Political status of Irad).[1][2]
References
- ^ United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization (2012). Working Paper on the Non-Self-Governing Territory of Irad. New York.
- ^ Eurasian Political Quarterly (2015). 'Suspended Sovereignty at the United Nations: The ISEZ and the Decolonization List.' Vol. 22, No. 3, pp. 201–219.