| September 25-October 2, 1999 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Acting OSCE chairman visits Tashkent
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|  resident Islam Karimov met with an OSCE delegation led by its acting chairman and the foreign minister of Norway Knut Vollebek on Wednesday.
Uzbekistan joined the OSCE in 1992 and has been cooperating with this organization very actively. Tashkent hosted a couple of important OSCE seminars in the past. Both sides spoke about the situation in Kyrgyzstan and ways to resolve the conflict. President Karimov has encouraged the OSCE to play an active role in conflict resolution in Central Asia. His first such address was made in Lisbon during the OSCE summit in 1996. Knut Vollebek also met with Parliament speaker Erkin Khalilov and Human Rights Ombudsman Sayyora Rashidova.
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Motorola opens country office in Tashkent
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|  ell-known American Motorola company opened its country office in Tashkent on Monday. Same event inaugurated a new Uzbek-American joint venture UMT-Radio (Uzbekistan-Motorola-Telecommunications). This is the company's first joint venture in the CIS. The new JV invested two million dollars to its authorization capital fund and will install two-way radio, short wave and ultra-short-wave radio stations, radio surveillance system and special antennas. The new JV production target is 200 thousand items for the first five years.
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U.S. provides humanitarian cargo to Uzbek health service
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|  humanitarian cargo estimated at five million dollars has arrived in Tashkent from
the United State on Monday. The humanitarian cargo contains medications and medical equipment, officials from the Uzbek
Health Ministry said.
"This is a seventh project carried out in the framework of relations of partnership between Uzbekistan and the US organization
"Doctors from Heart". The US State Department provided a plane to airlift the humanitarian cargo, said the US ambassador to
Uzbekistan.
Thirty US doctors-volunteers have arrived in Uzbekistan on the same flight. They will visit the Andizhan, Samarkand,
Kashkadaryinsky and other regions with the aim to render practical assistance to medical personnel of these regions in practical
use of the delivered medications, and will take part in a seminar devoted to problems of family life.
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Kyrgyz delegates to discuss hostage issue with Taliban
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| n official delegation of Kyrgyzstan representatives, led by Tursunbek Akunov,
Chairman of the Human Rights Commission, has arrived here for negotiations with Afghan Taliban movement.
Reliable sources have told Itar-Tass that this confidential meeting, which is to be held on Tuesday with the mediation of the
Pakistani side, will deal mainly with the hostage issue. The sides are to discuss a release of the hostages taken by a Moslem
guerrilla group on Kyrgyzstan's territory in August this year.
The delegation is to meet with Mullah Abdul Jalil, Deputy Foreign Minister in the Taliban administration, who arrived here
expressly for this purpose. Subsequently, the delegation is to go to Afghanistan for a continuation of the negotiations.
Akunov will seek to win Taliban's support in the efforts towards a release of the four Japanese geologists and several Kirghiz
servicemen, who were taken hostage by an Islamist militant group headed by an Uzbek field commander. The group had
penetrated into Kyrgyzstan from Tajikistan after, supposedly, crossing the Tajik-Afghan border.
Last week Uzbekistan's Foreign minister stated that the said militants belong to an anti-government Uzbek group which is
permanently based in Taliban-controlled areas of Afghanistan.
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Kyrgyzstan preparing to strike against guerrillas
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|  nterfax on 27 September quoted National Guard Commander Lieutenant-
General Abdygul Chotbaev as saying that preparations are
under way for a military strike against the ethnic Uzbek
guerrillas holding 13 hostages in southern Kyrgyzstan. But
Chotbaev added that all other possible means of securing the
hostages' release, including "people's diplomacy," should
also be used. Human Rights Movement of Kyrgyzstan Chairman
Tursunbek Akunov left Bishkek last week for an unnamed
Islamic state where he hopes to hold talks with the "senior
commanders" of the guerrillas, RFE/RL's Bishkek bureau
reported on 27 September. Akunov has been mediating between
the guerrillas and the Kyrgyz leadership for several weeks.
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Kyrgyz forces repulse guerrilla attack
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|  unmen hiding in Kyrgyzstan's
remote southern mountains
attacked government troops in an
apparent attempt to penetrate
deeper into the country, Kyrgyz
Security Council head Bolot
Dzhanuzakov said Tuesday.
"About 30 gunmen attacked troops' positions (near) Haidarkhan village late
on Monday night," Dzhanuzakov told a news briefing. "It was an attempt to
penetrate deeper into Kyrgyz territory." He said the attack had been
repulsed without casualties among Kyrgyz troops.
The gunmen, believed to be radical Uzbek
Islamists operating from Tajik bases to
overthrow the regime of Uzbek President
Islam Karimov, still hold four Japanese and
nine Kyrgyz as hostages.
Kyrgyzstan has refused to negotiate with
the guerrillas, but its ill-equipped army is
struggling to deal with the incursion. The
tiny impoverished state has been forced to
request help from Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan
and Russia.
Dzhanuzakov said Monday's attack was the
guerrillas' sixth attempt to break out of their
hiding places in the Batken region 250 miles
south of the capital Bishkek.
"The guerrillas realize that they are in a
tightly blocked position and are trying to
find spots where they can penetrate into
other areas," he said.
The gunmen were evidently preparing for
winter and had been receiving weapons, food, clothes and medicines from
their bases in Tajikistan, he said.
"Tajikistan promised to seal the borders but unfortunately gunmen are still
coming in from there," he added.
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Situation stabilizing in Southern Kyrgyzstan
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|  yrgyzstan's Prime Minister Amangeldy Muraliev told journalists in Astana
on 24 September that the situation in the south of the
country has stabilized and that all approaches to the
guerrillas' bases are blocked, ITAR-TASS reported. Meeting
with Muraliev on the sidelines of the CIS Customs Union
session, Russian Prime Minister Putin assured him
that Moscow fully supports Bishkek's actions against the
guerrillas. Uzbekistan's President Islam Karimov conveyed
similar assurances in a letter to his Kyrgyz counterpart,
Askar Akaev. Also on 24 September, Akaev telephoned with
Japanese Premier Keizo Obuchi to promise him that Kyrgyzstan
is continuing to do everything in its power to secure the
release of four Japanese geologists taken hostage by the
guerrillas five weeks ago, Interfax reported.
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Some suspects in Uzbek bombing released
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|  zbek Interior Ministry spokesman Batyr Zieev said on 22 September that more
than 700 people detained in connection with the 16 February
bombings in Tashkent have been released in recent months,
RFE/RL's Tashkent bureau reported. He added that most of
those released were members of the Islamic political movement
Hezbi Takhrir. The deputy head of Uzbekistan's human rights
agency, Abdurashid Irisbaev, said the initial charges brought
against the suspects could not be corroborated.
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