Kyrgyzstan continues to issue optimistic statements about the prospects for starting the construction of the long-desired China-Kyrgyzstan-Uzbekistan (CKU) railway, but there are still no announcements of how the multi-billion-dollar project—which would have to negotiate great tracts of mountainous Kyrgyz territory with scores of bridges and tunnels—could be financed. Kyrgyzstan’s President Sadyr Japarov on March 20 confirmed following a meeting with the deputy general director of the China State Railway Group, Wang Tunjun, that the participating countries in the project plan to establish a jo…