In 1981, Otunbayeva became a secretary of the Lenin council of Frunze. In the late 1980s, she was the head of the Soviet delegation to UNESCO in Paris. Later she was the Soviet Ambassador to Malaysia. When Kyrgyzstan became independent, she was the Foreign Minister and Deputy Prime Minister, then she was Kyrgyzstan's first ambassador to the USA and Canada. From 1998 to 2001, she was the Kyrgyz ambassador to the United Kingdom. From 2002 to 2004, she was deputy head of the United Nations Observer Mission in Georgia. On April 7, 2010, Otunbayeva became the head of a Kyrgyz interim government.