Kyrgyzstan denies Uzbek attacks allegation

BISHKEK May 27 (Reuters) - Kyrgyzstan denied on Wednesday an allegation by neighbouring Uzbekistan that militants had crossed its border to launch attacks in eastern Uzbekistan.

Uzbekistan's General Prosecutor's office said one policeman was killed on Tuesday in the city of Andizhan and another was wounded in an attack on a town near its border with Kyrgyzstan.

It said the militants had come across the border from Kyrgyzstan. Kyrgyzstan denied this.

"As for a statement by the Uzbek General Prosecutor on the 'penetration of bandits from Kyrgyz territory', we declare that Kyrgyz border guards have not registered any illegal border crossings," the Kyrgyz border guards said in a statement.

The incidents have raised tensions in Central Asia's most ethnically divided area and reinforced Western worries about stability in the Muslim region near Afghanistan.

Information on the attacks has been scarce and contradictory out of Uzbekistan, a reclusive nation which remains off limits to most journalists due to restrictive media rules.

The attacks occurred in the heart of the Ferghana valley, an impoverished part of Central Asia where the economic crisis and falling remittances from migrant workers have sharpened tensions among its ethnically and religiously divided population.

In the only official statement out of Uzbekistan, the General Prosecutor's office said militants attacked a police station in Khanabad, injuring a policeman. It said a suicide bomb attack killed a policeman in nearby Andizhan.

Local news sites quoted witnesses on Wednesday as saying they heard more gunfire in Andizhan overnight but it was unclear who was involved.

The independent uznews.net Web site said a state of emergency had been declared in Andizhan where schools and public offices remained shut and security tightened.

Andizhan was the scene of a 2005 uprising which earned Uzbekistan international condemnation. Uzbek officials say 187 people died. Independent witnesses said hundreds of unarmed civilians were killed during the uprising.

The Uzbek president, Islam Karimov, has been in power since 1989 and has long said that Islamist militants are plotting to topple his secular rule. Western rights groups have accused him of using this threat to crack down on wider political dissent in the former Soviet country of 27 million. (Writing by Maria Golovnina; editing by Robert Woodward)

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