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Despite obstacles in very many ways, post-socialist Mongolia has lately emerged as one of the countries which has been making all round progress in its socio-economic and political reforms. It is also evidenced by the fact that the UN Secretary General Kofi Annan during his official visit to Mongolia on October 16-17, 2002 praised Mongolia's success in democratic and other reforms.1 It has thus come a long way since it opted for democracy and market reforms in 1989 under the influence of the then Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev's policy oîglasnost and perestroïka. However, as it happened in several East European and Central Asian countries following the collapse of the former Soviet Union, Mongolia too faced severe challenges both at the domestic as well as international fronts. Departure from socialism in favour of democracy has not been an easy task for a country like Mongolia which remained under the Soviet grip for almost seventy years. Socio- economic and political reforms brought about several key issues at the forefront which required more than anything else a commitment to resolve them both on the part of Mongolian leadership and the people as a whole. Post-Socialist Mongolia has shown eagerness towards this commitment and government policies have been framed in such a way that it could benefit both the nation and the people irrespective of race, religion, social origin or ethnic identities etc.
During its transition to a democratic state structure in the 1990s Mongolia adopted several key documents which confirmed that at least in the area of ethnicity, the country preferred to be different from its two neighbours - Russia and China. It opted for neither the federalism of Russia nor the multi-culturalism of China, rather a unitary state system.2 Article 2 of the current constitution adopted on January 13, 1992 states: "Mongolia is a unitary state [and]. . .shall be divided into administrative units only."3 This kind of stand seems to have been an "oblique reference" to Mongolia's only one sizeable ethnic minority, the Kazakhs who have no place for separatism, if at all it happens in future.
The Kazakh migration to the Mongol territory began as far back as in 1860s onwards, mainly originating from the present XinjiangUighur Autonomous Region of China. More than a...