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Uzbekistan tells EU not to lecture on human rights

ASTANA: Uzbekistan told the European Union on Wednesday it was ready for more dialogue, not lectures, with the West on its human rights record and played down the impact of the EU’s economic sanctions.

The European Union restricted military sales and stopped issuing visas for a number of top Uzbek officials in November 2005 after accusing Uzbekistan of using indiscriminate force to quash a uprising in the town of Andizhan in May 2005.

“Our reform path is justified and therefore we don’t want to explain ourselves to anyone,” said Uzbek Foreign Minister Vladimir Norov, speaking after talks with his German counterpart Frank-Walter Steinmeier, whose country is the EU president. “We are ready ... for mutually beneficial relations and dialogue on all issues including human rights,” Norov said. “But in this case the situation should not be that of a pupil and a lecturer.”

Steinmeier was in the Kazakh capital Astana on a Central Asia visit to promote the EU’s role in a region viewed with avid interest by Russia, the United States and China. Uzbekistan is key to EU ambitions to develop energy ties. “It’s a different question whether these (EU) sanctions had any impact on Uzbekistan’s development, its integration into the international community, for (Uzbekistan) to make any concessions,” Norov said.

Norov said Uzbekistan had 1,000 years of good economic and cultural ties with Arab, Asian and CIS countries. Human rights groups had urged Steinmeier to put pressure on Central Asian countries with often patchy human rights records. They have accused Tashkent of jailing housands of dissidents, using torture in prisons and stifling press freedom.

Uzbekistan, which blamed Andizhan violence on Islamic rebels, has said it needs a tough domestic policy to prevent what it sees as a rise of militant Islam in the region. reuters

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