| March 13-March 20, 1999 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| |
Uzbeks offer second reward in bomb suspects search
| |
Uzbekistan offered
$240,000 on Friday
for information leading to the capture of five people
suspected of involvement in
bomb blasts which killed 16 people in the capital
Tashkent.
A similar, $250,000 reward was offered shortly after the
explosions on
February 16, which also wounded more than 130 people and
were described
by President Islam Karimov as an attempt to kill him.
The ex-Soviet republic's official Interior Ministry
publication listed the names of
the five suspects. It said three of them were from
Tashkent and two were from
Andizhan in the far east of the country.
Karimov has blamed the attacks on "religious fanatics"
operating in Uzbekistan,
an impoverished Central Asian state of 23 million people
which is witnessing an
Islamic revival.
Karimov told a news briefing earlier this week that four
of the six people named
in the original reward announcement had already been
captured. The five named
on Friday appeared to be separate suspects.
|
| |
BA to start services to Cuba, Uzbekistan
| | British Airways Plc said on
Thursday it would
start new routes to Cuba and Uzbekistan as part of its
new summer timetable
starting on March 28.
The weekly flight to Havana would be launched in April
to
cater for Cuba's
growth as a tourist destination and was expected to
mirror the success of flights
to Cancun in Mexico, which was moving to a twice weekly
programme after just
12 months of opeation.
Frequencies were also being increased to Buenos Aires,
Santiago and Mexico
City.
BA said from May 1, flights to Baku, Azerbaijan, would
continue on to
Tashkent, the capital of oil-rich Uzbekistan.
In Africa and the Middle East, flights to Accra, Ghana,
would be increased to
five a week and there would be a non-stop service to
Tehran.
In Europe, a new daily Boeing 737 service from
Birmingham
to Madrid would
start in May to cater for the increase in city-break
customers. Services from
Heathrow to Copenhagen and Oslo would rise to five a
day.
British Airways earlier said it would seek permission
again next year to fly
between London and Shanghai after it lost the first
round
of the race to Virgin
Atlantic Airways.
|
| |
Kazakhstan extradites 7 bombing suspects to Uzbekistan
| |
Kazakhstan has arrested
and extradited
to Uzbekistan seven people suspected of setting off
bombs
in the Uzbek capital
Tashkent in February, a source in the Alma Ata city
police department told Tass
on Thursday.
The source denied media reports of arresting 30 Uzbeks
suspected of
involvement in the bombings.
The Kazakh authorities had checked 50 secret addressed
where those arrested
lived and had questioned 30 witnesses.
All the detainees belong to Wahabi, a reactionary
Islamic
trend, and its Uzbek
branch, Uzbekiston Islam Harakati. Most of them are
Uzbek
nationals, but
several Kyrgyz and Afghan passports were also found.
Investigators have found out that Alma Ata was a refuge
and a safe haven for
them, from where they were sent to other countries.
Recruits had been taught
how to wage subversive activities and commits acts of
terrorism.
Several explosions rocked Tashkent on February 16,
killing 15 people and
wounding more than 150. The blasts occurred in the
government building, the
national bank, the street where the several embassies
are
situated, and near the
airport.
| |
|
Uzbekistan to step up military cooperation with Turkey
| |
Uzbekistan would step up military
cooperation with Turkey within the framework of NATO's Partnership for Peace
Program, Uzbek President Islam Abduganiyevich Karimov said Monday.
In working with Turkey, Karimov was quoted as saying by reports from the Uzbek
capital of Tashkent, his country would learn from what was gained in the NATO
member's military cooperation with Georgia and Azerbaijan.
Emerging from talks with his Turkish counterpart Suleyman Demirel, Karimov at a
joint news briefing in Tashkent thanked Turkey for backing Uzbekistan's bid to join
the Black Sea Economic Cooperation Organization (BSECO).
The BSECO was founded in 1992 by Turkey and 10 other countries around the
Black Sea.
Demirel, in Tashkent for a one-day visit, spoke highly about cooperation in various
fields between the two countries in the past eight years, and promised to continue
his country's full support to Uzbekistan's anti-terrorism campaign.
Investors from Turkey, a major economic partner of Uzbekistan, has provided full
funding for about 400 investment projects and initiated some 250 joint venture
projects worth a total of 1 billion U.S. dollars in the former Soviet republic.
As the two countries have had 46 cooperation agreements in operation, their
bilateral trade reached 270 million dollars last year.
| | |
Karimov asks for INTERPOL help in hunt for bombers
| |
Uzbek President Islam Karimov Monday
called for Interpol's cooperation in the capture of two men who allegedly organized
six bomb blasts last month in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent.
Karimov said the Uzbek police had issued warrants against the two men, Takir
Yuldashev and Makhammad Solikh, the Interfax news agency reported on
Tuesday.
He said Yuldashev, the leader of an Islamic fundamentalist group headquartered in
Pakistan, was believed to have fought in the wars in Afghanistan and Tajikistan
and also have ties to Mullar Mohammad Omar, the leader of Afghanistan's
Taliban.
Karimov said evidence showed that Solikh, one of his former presidential
challengers, had gone to Afghanistan to conspire with Yuldashev in an attempt to
seize the Uzbek presidency.
Salikh was defeated by Karimov in the 1991 presidential race. On February 16, six
blasts rocked Tashkent, killing 15 people and injuring more than 100. The Uzbek
police have so far detained over 30 suspects.
|
|
|
Turkish, Uzbek leaders meet over trade and economic ties
|
|
Turkish President Suleyman Demirel on
Monday met on the first leg of his visit to Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov.
After that, the talks of the two leaders will continue in a broader format, with
participation of delegations from both sides. They are expected to result in the
signing of several documents, including on boosting trade and economic
cooperation.
The two presidents are also expected to give a press conference. On Tuesday,
Demirel will visit Samarkand to participate together with Karimov in the unveiling
of the Uzbek- Turkish joint venture plant for the production of buses and trucks.
This is the second in Uzbekistan car-building plant. A plant, with a capacity of
200,000 cars a year, has been operating in the Andizhan region for over three
years. It produces Nexia, Tico and Damast cars.
|
|
|
Turkish president leaves for Uzbekistan on visit
| |
Turkish President Suleyman Demirel left
here Monday morning for an official visit to Uzbekistan to enhance ties between
the two countries.
Before his departure at the Ankara Esenboga Airport, Demirel said in a
statement that "Turkey and Uzbekistan have historical and cultural links and the
rapidly developing cooperation and partnership ties will make our two brotherly
states more close."
Turkey has attached great importance to developing its relations with Uzbekistan
and spared no efforts in strengthening bilateral cooperation since the latter gained
independence, Demirel said.
He said that he and Uzbek President Islam Karimov will hold official talks on the
bilateral ties in all the fields during his two-day visit.
Demirel is also scheduled to attend the opening ceremony of a passenger bus
and truck factory which was set up by the Koc Holding, a leading Turkish firm,
in Samarqand.
During Demirel's visit, the Turkish-Uzbek Business Council will convene to
explore opportunities to boost the existing economic and trade relations and
raise the trade volume between the two countries.
Turkey has been showing great interest in developing its ties with the Central
Asian countries following the collapse of former Soviet Union.
|
|
|
Kazakhstan extradites terrorist involved in blasts
| |
Kazakh authorities on Monday extradited
one of the leaders of the terrorist group involved in a series of bombings in
Tashkent about a month ago.
The criminal was handed over to Uzbekistan. He had been arrested in the city of
Taldy-Kurgan, a large administrative centre in the Alma Ata region, where he
was hiding in the apartment of his girl friend, the National Security Committee
told Itar-Tass.
Special services had worked out a special plan to seize the terrorist capable of
armed resistance. However, he was taken without a single shot being fired. The
criminal, a resident of Uzbekistan, did not even suspect that police had him
under surveillance.
Under the treaty of friendship between Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Kirghizia,
which obligates the parties to provide assistance to each other in fighting
terrorism and extradite criminals, the terrorist was handed over to Uzbekistan in
Tashkent and taken out of the country under guard.
In the interests of investigation, the details of the operation have not been
disclosed. It is not known where other members of the criminal group are hiding
and how many of them are there.
Meanwhile, Uzbek President Islam Karimov said that the terrorist acts in
Tashkent had been thoroughly planned and their organisers were outside
Uzbekistan.
Speaking at a press conference earlier today, called to report the results of
Turkish President Suleyman Demirel's visit to Uzbekistan, Karimov said that
"those who committed these heinous crimes are all Uzbeks. More than 10 of
them have been identified and four are already testifying. They were arrested
outside Uzbekistan. It is known today who drove the cars and who activated the
horrible machines, which kind of explosive was used, etc."
The president named two key figures in these terrorist acts -- Takhir Yuldashev
of Namangan, who has fled to Afghanistan, then to Tajikistan and eventually to
Pakistan, and Mukhammad Salikh, Karimov's former opponent in the recent
presidential elections, a poet and former deputy of the former Uzbek parliament.
"Uzbekistan has officially asked Interpol to help detain and extradite these two
main organisers of these horrendous terrorist acts in Tashkent a month ago,"
Karimov said.
|
|
|
Turk Koc Group in Uzbek refrigerator plant venture
| |
Leading Turkish industrial conglomerate Koc
Holding (KCHOL.IS) will sign an accord on Tuesday to set up a joint refrigerator
plant in Uzbekistan, company officials said.
The joint venture, with a $43.4 million capital, will be 51 percent owned by Koc
group, 40 percent by Uzbekistan's Sino company and nine percent by the
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) and International
Finance Corporation (IFC).
"The $76.9 million investment is expected to start in June and will be completed
within a year and a half," a Koc official told Reuters.
The factory, in the city of Samarkand, will have an annual production capacity of
150,000 units at the end of the first two years and 250,000 at the end of the fourth
year. It will export half of its output to nearby countries, he said.
The plant will produce seven different refrigerator models and employ 330 people.
|
E-mail me on: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||