Uzbek, Turkmen heads make up after coup accusations
Reuters
November 19The autocratic leaders of Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan publicly set aside deep differences at their first meeting in four years on Friday, signing pacts on friendship and water-sharing.
Relations between the gas-rich Central Asian states hit a low two years ago when Turkmenistan accused Uzbekistan of complicity in an alleged plot to assassinate Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov.
Niyazov and Uzbek President Islam Karimov both face Western criticism over human rights abuses and slow economic reforms.
"Today, there are no more issues that would worry us," Niyazov, known as Turkmenbashi or Father of all Turkmen, said after meeting Karimov amid tight security in Uzbekistan's ancient Silk Road city of Bukhara, near the Turkmen border.
The two states have also been at odds over an oilfield and water supplies, and there have been reports of border guards opening fire on the Uzbek-Turkmen border in recent years, targeting smugglers carrying cheap Turkmen goods into Uzbekistan.
"Our Uzbek friends and Turkmen citizens residing at the border may sleep quietly and shouldn't worry about tomorrow," Niyazov told a news conference. "I believe there won't be any misunderstandings in the future."
In December 2002 Turkmenistan gave the Uzbek ambassador 24 hours to leave the country, saying the diplomat had given refuge to a Turkmen opposition politician who plotted to kill Niyazov.
It remained unclear on Friday if the two leaders had agreed on a new Uzbek envoy to Turkmenistan.
Since the alleged coup attempt in November 2002 Niyazov has only twice left his country, to visit Russia and Iran.
"Turkmen people are literally our closest neighbours," Karimov said after signing pacts with Niyazov on friendship, confidence-building and cooperation.
Niyazov said the two sides had agreed to form a joint group to control the use of water from the Amu Darya river that feeds the two nations' scarce arable lands surrounded by deserts.
He also said the disputed Kokdumalak oilfield, most of which lies in Turkmenistan but has been exploited by Uzbekistan since Soviet times, had also been on the agenda, but gave no details.
Niyazov and Karimov agreed in the mid-1990s that Uzbekistan would annually ship 750,000 tonnes of Kokdumalak crude to its neighbour free of charge for 15 years. But crude supplies have been highly erratic in the past two years.