⁍ Kyrgyz President Sooronbai Jeenbekov resigned on Thursday, leaving power in the hands of a nationalist rival whose supporters freed him from jail last week.

---

⁍ The swift transition appears to put an end to more than a week of turmoil and unrest that followed a disputed election.

---

⁍ Sadyr Japarov, 51, who was named prime minister this week, told cheering supporters that he had taken on the powers of the presidency.

---

– After more than a week of political turmoil in the Central Asian nation of Kyrgyzstan, President Sooronbai Jeenbekov resigned today, Reuters reports. Jeenbekov had refused to step down, saying he would stay in office until a new election could be held. But Jeenbekov’s political rival, former Prime Minister Sadyr Japarov, had called for Jeenbekov’s resignation last week, and Japarov was named Kyrgyzstan’s interim president this week. “I do not want to go down in Kyrgyzstan’s history as a president who shed blood and shot at his own citizens,” Jeenbekov said in a statement, according to the New York Times. Jeenbekov’s resignation appears to end the crisis in the country, which has been in turmoil since a disputed parliamentary vote on Oct. 4 resulted in Japarov’s victory over Jeenbekov’s party. Jeenbekov became the third president of Kyrgyzstan since 2005 to be toppled in a popular uprising; he said he was resigning to prevent violence, which he said would have been inevitable if protesters carried out a threat to march on his compound. Kyrgyzstan’s constitution requires a new election for president within three months. The rules appear to bar Japarov, as interim president, from standing again. Since the election, opposition supporters have taken to the streets and seized government buildings, prompting the authorities to annul the vote.