Roza Otunbayeva

Roza Isakovna Otunbayeva (; born 23 August 1950) is a Kyrgyz diplomat and politician who served as the President of Kyrgyzstan from 7 April 2010 until 1 December 2011, becoming the first female Central Asian head of state. She was sworn in on July 3, 2010, after acting as interim leader following the 2010 April Revolution, which led to the ousting of President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. She previously served as Minister of Foreign Affairs and as head of the parliamentary caucus for the Social Democratic Party of Kyrgyzstan. Since 2022, Otunbayeva has been serving as United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres’ Special Representative for Afghanistan and Head of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA). Early life Roza Otunbayeva was born in Frunze (now Bishkek, the capitol of Kyrgyzstan), Kirghiz SSR, USSR into the family of Isak Otunbayev, a member of the Supreme Court of Kyrgyz SSR (1967–1992), and Salika Daniyarova (1925–2020), a teacher. She graduated from the Philosophy Faculty of Moscow State University in 1972 and went on to teach as Senior Teacher and then as Head of the Philosophy Department at Kyrgyz State National University for six years (1975–1981). In 1975, she became Candidate of Sciences after defending her dissertation, "Critique of falsification of Marxist-Leninist dialectic by the philosophers of Frankfurt school".