Law or policy reform enabling automatic acquisition of nationality It is also important to mention that the 2007 law generally recognizes dual nationality, except for citizens of the neighboring States of China, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan. However, in the case of citizens from these States, the Citizenship Regulations contain a safeguard against statelessness by providing that their passports and applications on renunciation of citizenship are forwarded to the consular offices of the relevant States only after the acquisition of Kyrgyz citizenship. Since the 2012 amendment to the Citizenship Law, the same exception applies to ethnic Kyrgyz, former nationals who have returned to reside in the Kyrgyz Republic, as well as to foreign and stateless women who are married to Kyrgyz nationals. The requirement that a presumed pre-existing nationality be renounced before acquiring Kyrgyz nationality is similar to what is found throughout the CIS region and linked to the prohibition on dual nationality in most countries in the region. The requirement had previously posed acute problems, particularly for Uzbek nationals residing in Kyrgyzstan, who had to submit an application for renunciation of their Uzbek nationality, pay a high fee and wait for several years for an official confirmation before being able to apply for Kyrgyz nationality. In other cases, persons may have renounced their foreign nationality but failed to fulfil some other naturalization criteria and ended up stateless. The safeguard in the Kyrgyz citizenship legislation is thus a best practice. The procedure for determining Kyrgyz citizenship Presidential Decree #473 of 2007 granted authority to bodies called Conflict Commissions in provincial Departments for Passport and Visa Control (DPVCs) of the Ministry of Interior of the Kyrgyz Republic to consider applications from the category of persons described in Article 5 (former USSR citizens with five years of permanent residence who have not declared that they possess the citizenship of another State).25 Through the adoption in August 2013 of the Regulation on the Procedure for Considering Issues relating to the Citizenship of the Kyrgyz Republic, approved by Presidential Decree No 174 (hereinafter the “2013 Citizenship Regulation”), the Conflict Commissions were renamed Commissions for Citizenship Determination and their competence broadened from determining whether someone is a citizen of Kyrgyzstan to determining whether the person is a citizen of Kyrgyzstan, of a third State or stateless. 25 Since 2009, the State Registration Service has become the successor agency to the DPVCs with regard to passport issuance and registration of citizens. U N H C R > G P P A C T I O N 1 : R E S O LV I N G E X I S T I N G M A J O R S I T U AT I O N S O F S TAT E L E S S N E S S 25