|
|
|
  |
| Sunday, 22 May 2005 |
 |
|
 |
World |  |
| News Business Features Editorial
|
US disappointed, Uzbek rejects international probe WASHINGTON, Saturday (AFP) The United States wants Uzbekistan to allow an inquiry into a bloody military crackdown on rebels, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday, after President Islam Karimov declined a UN call for a probe. "We're urging the Karimov government to allow inquiry into the events that took place there," Rice said. Witnesses, human rights groups and Uzbek opposition activists said that on May 13 Uzbek soldiers indiscriminately slaughtered 500 to 1,000 people around the eastern town of Andijan. The Karimov government said 169 people died when it deployed military force as an emergency measure in response to what it called armed Islamic extremists seeking to overthrow the government and establish an Islamic state in Central Asia. "We have been for quite a long time talking to the Karimov government about the importance of an open political society," Rice said. "The President (George W. Bush) made very clear in his second inaugural address that our relations with countries around the world would have as a large part of that discussion human rights and democracy. "And Uzbekistan is not immune from that," Rice told reporters during a joint news conference alongside visiting Iraqi Planning Minister Barham Saleh. "As to what further consequences there might be, I think Uzbekistan does not want to endure further isolation from the international community," she said. Rice spoke after US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher expressed
disappointment at Karimov's rejection of the idea of the inquiry into the
violence. |
|
| News | Business | Features
| Editorial | Security
| Produced by Lake House |
