West "rewarding repression" in Uzbek dealings-report
By Olzhas Auyezov
ALMATY, Feb 15 (Reuters) - The West's attempts to mend ties with authoritarian Uzbekistan are akin to "rewarding" the former Soviet state, the International Crisis Group (ICG) think-tank said in a report.
"The new body language from Washington, Berlin and Brussels comes across embarrassingly like rewarding repression and electoral fraud," the ICG wrote.
"The interpretation (President Islam) Karimov is likely to draw from it is 'hang tough and they will buckle.'"
With 27 million people, Uzbekistan has the largest population of all five former Soviet Central Asian states, it also holds large energy reserves and is one of the world's top cotton and gold exporters.
The ICG said it was likely Uzbek security agents murdered a prominent opposition journalist Alisher Saipov in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan last year, marking an escalation in Karimov's determination to retain power.
"If his (Karimov's) regime is indeed behind the killing of Alisher Saipov ... there has been an escalation in its repressive activities," the ICG said.
Uzbekistan's relations with the West soured in 2005 when troops fired on demonstrators in the eastern city of Andizhan. The United States condemned the killings and the European Union imposed sanctions.
In retaliation Uzbekistan evicted U.S. troops from an airbase it had established in the country to target the Taliban in neighbouring Afghanistan.
In recent months a senior European diplomat and a high-ranking U.S. military official have visited the country, prompting talks of improvement in mutual ties.
The West's conciliatory tone after last year' presidential elections, which gave Karimov another seven-year term is inconsistent, the group said.
The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) criticised the Dec. 23 election -- in which Karimov won 88 percent of the vote -- as undemocratic.
Karimov, who has been in power since 1989, ran in the election against three little-known candidates in a line-up analysts said was designed to lend the election an appearance of fairness. They won about three percent each.
Witnesses said hundreds were killed in the 2005 Andizhan shooting. The government blamed the violence on Islamic rebels and said mostly security forces and terrorists died there. (Writing by Olzhas Auyezov and James Kilner in Moscow, Editing by Matthew Jones)
