The member states of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) finally took resolute action to assist fellow member, Kyrgyzstan, which remains vulnerable to further mass violence and other disorders due to its multiple difficulties. At a meeting this weekend, the foreign ministers of the 56-state grouping endorsed a package plan to increase the OSCE’s presence in the region as a catalyst to mobilize additional international support for the beleaguered country. The same governments will meet again in a few days, at a session of the OSCE Permanent Council in Vienna, where they should endorse the intervention package.

At the session, Kanat Saudabayev, the foreign minister and state secretary of Kazakhstan, which currently holds the annually rotating OSCE chairmanship, said that the organization’s ability to stabilize the situation in Kyrgyzstan will be «a test of the OSCE’s vitality.» This is certainly true, but it is also unfortunate, since the OSCE lacks the resources or coherence of other multilateral security institutions active in Central Asia. That said, these other institutions have studiously avoided deep involvement in the Kyrgyz morass. So the OSCE represents the best mechanism at this time for restoring stability in a country situated in a vitally important region.

The specific precipitating factor for the most recent round of fighting, which began on June 10 in the southern city of Osh, remains unclear. But the underlying causes for the continuing instability in Kyrgyzstan are apparent. It is an impoverished country with artificial borders and a weak and divided political class, penetrated by drug dealers and Islamist extremists. It is also of little intrinsic importance to the great powers, who see Kyrgyzstan primarily as a transit route to and from Afghanistan and other countries.

Although the lack of institutional competition over Kyrgyzstan is welcome, a more positive cooperative agenda is needed to prevent further violence and disorder in a country that, at least for the moment, is playing an important support role in the Afghanistan operation. Should Kyrgyzstan succumb to state failure, it could also allow transnational terrorists and drug dealers to establish a base of operations in yet another region of the world.

At present, the ability of the Kyrgyz armed forces and security services to maintain order under the current interim government is uncertain. The Kyrgyz authorities took a big gamble in holding a national constitutional referendum so soon after the mass violence. But the high turnout and overwhelming support given by the voters on June 27 for the proposed draft constitution helped provide the beleaguered authorities some needed national and international legitimacy despite the irregular manner in which they came to power.

Nevertheless, the government of interim President Roza Otunbayeva still struggles to keep control of the southern region, where supporters of deposed President Kurmanbek Bakiev continue to have considerable influence. Further major unrest in southern Kyrgyzstan could still provoke a civil war, territorial fracturing, and the intervention of neighboring countries. These dangers underscore the necessity for continuing and effective OSCE involvement.

Still, opposition to a major international presence in Kyrgyzstan persists among the country’s internal security forces and other elites. For months, Kyrgyz officials in the country’s defense and interior ministries have resisted foreign pressure to allow an international inquiry into the causes of the riots, which killed at least 2,000 people and at one point produced 500,000 refugees and internally displaced people, mostly ethnic Uzbeks. Leaders of the country’s security forces have been especially eager not to shed light on the possible complicity of Kyrgyzstan’s primarily ethnic Kyrgyz police force in the anti-Uzbek violence.

But in mid-July, following continued foreign pressure, Otunbayeva overcame internal opposition and secured Kyrgyz government approval to accept an independent, international inquiry, chaired by Kimmo Kiljunen, special representative for Central Asia of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, into the clashes. A similar process of grudging acceptance occurred in the case of proposals, first raised by human rights groups, to send an OSCE police mission to southern Kyrgyzstan. The proposals initially encountered stiff resistance from Kyrgyzstan’s defense and interior officials, which only gave way after weeks of global pressure.

That resulted in the agreement in principle at the July 16-17 meeting of the OSCE foreign ministers to send an unarmed 52-member Police Advisory Group to the southern provinces of Osh and Jalal-Abad for an initial period of four months, with the possibility of further extending their presence if needed. The ministers also reached a consensus on the principles and modalities of the proposed police mission, while deferring a formal deployment decision a few days until the OSCE Permanent Council could meet this Thursday. Their approval is expected, although the specific date the mission would begin remains uncertain. The plan adopted by the foreign ministers also provides for the option to send another 50 officers to reinforce the initial contingent later if needed.

Interestingly, OSCE representatives explicitly noted that the Police Advisory Group would have two functions. In addition to advising the Kyrgyz police on how to improve their performance, the group would have the additional task of monitoring the Kyrgyz police’s behavior, thereby protecting and reassuring the ethnic Uzbek community that suffered most during the recent violence. Many foreign observers believe that when the clashes between the ethnic Kyrgyz and ethnic Uzbeks broke out on June 10, the predominately ethnic Kyrgyz security forces fought against the country’s Uzbek minority rather than taking a neutral stance and seeking above all to restore order. Although ethnic Uzbeks compose some 15 percent of Kyrgyzstan’s population, Kyrgyzstan’s police and military forces consist almost entirely of ethnic Kyrgyz.

Whether 50 or even 100 strong, the unarmed OSCE police group is not sufficiently large or appropriately equipped to maintain law and order on its own. But the concentrated monitoring in the area of the recent violence might prove sufficient to deter further provocations or Kyrgyz police abuses due to their now-heightened visibility to the international community.

Another major mission for the OSCE should be to strengthen security along Kyrgyzstan’s borders. This could prevent the infiltration of transnational criminal and extremist groups as well as to reassure Kyrgyzstan’s neighbors so that they refrain from again partially or completely closing their borders with the landlocked country. Launching an OSCE-led program to collect the small arms and light weapons circulating in Kyrgyzstan would further reassure neighboring countries — as well as the Kyrgyz people — about their safety. Although approval of the OSCE police mission is most urgent, the Permanent Council should also consider these options on Thursday, which would build on the expertise the organization has developed in conducting such programs in other states.

In the longer term, the OSCE will need to address the major political, economic, and social causes of the unrest in Kyrgyzstan. At a minimum, the OSCE governments should review in detail what went wrong in Kyrgyzstan after that country’s failed 2005 revolution and again after the April 2010 coup. They should then try to ensure that similar mistakes are not repeated in the future. Certainly, the OSCE, with the support of all its members and sufficient resources, has the mandate and toolkit to address many sources of recurring instability in Kyrgyzstan — particularly corruption and poor governance, the strength of political nepotism, and the recurring role of ethnic and clan divisions in warping the country’s political dynamics.

That said, while the OSCE can conduct some of these initiatives independently, achieving a more integrated approach with the potential contributions of other multinational security institutions would be most valuable. The OSCE governments should address the issue of broadening multilateral involvement at their planned heads-of-state summit later this year.

Richard Weitz is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and a World Politics Review senior editor. His weekly WPR column, Global Insights, appears every Tuesday.

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