Agence France-Presse
October 23
he head of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said Monday he was "pleased" with his meeting with authoritarian Uzbek President Islam Karimov, whom he tried to convince to improve his human rights and democratic record.
OSCE Chairman and Romanian Foreign Minister Mircea Geoana said he had "tried to convince (Uzbek authorities) that the world had changed since September 11," when terrorist attacks killed thousands in the United States, and that a measure of human rights and democracy were necessary to stop the rise of Islamist fundamentalism.
Geoana had earlier warned Uzbekistan, as well as Russia, against exploiting the US-led attacks on Afghanistan to clamp down on political opposition at home.
Human rights groups, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, frequently condemn the harsh treatment meted out to Karimov's political opponents, particularly Islamist militants, who are subject to arrests, torture and disappearances.
But Uzbek Parliamentary Chairman Erkin Khalilov said that an improvement in the Central Asian former Soviet republic's battered human rights record would only come after economic development and western investment.
"Without economic development, there is nothing we can do about human rights," Khalilov said upon meeting Geoana.
"If you want us to adopt European values, then European companies have to invest" in Uzbekistan, he added.
Geoana left Uzbekistan Monday for Azerbaijan and then Moscow, where he is to meet Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov and his French counterpart Hubert Vedrine Tuesday.
Uzbekistan, which shares a 140-kilometre (85-mile) border with Afghanistan, has placed a military base at Washington's disposal, and a unit of US crack troops has recently arrived on Uzbek soil.