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EU Sanctions Against Uzbekistan Remain in Effect |
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Wednesday, 30 April 2008The Uzbek Issue discussed at length, EU ministers in Luxembourg voted to leave in effect the sanctions slapped on Uzbekistan after the tragedy in Andijan in May 2005.
The conference adopted a document that extended the sanctions regime for six months. Unless Uzbekistan puts together its act in the sphere of human rights, insiders claim that the EU will reestablish a ban on entry visas for top officials of the Uzbek state.
The European Union is nevertheless prepared to advance interaction with Uzbekistan despite the sanctions and means to open a mission in Tashkent. According to Benita Ferrero-Waldner, Commissar for Foreign Contacts and Neighborhood Policy, this option became possible when the European Commission had seen success of the reforms launched by the Uzbek authorities. The matter concerns abolition of capital punishment and release of some political prisoners from jails in Uzbekistan. The European Union nevertheless acknowledges that it will take more than that to persuade it that the Uzbek authorities mean business and intend to advance cooperation with Europe.
"The European Union is split on the matter of Uzbekistan," Sanobar Shermatova, an expert on Central Asia and the Caucasus, told Nezavisimaya Gazeta. Designer of the EU concept regarding Central Asia, Germany openly promotes interests of Uzbekistan and strives to have sanctions against Tashkent abolished altogether. Practically the leading investor in Uzbek economy, Germany promotes its own interests of course. Along with everything else, Berlin is using a military airfield in Termez (Uzbekistan) to ferry supplies to 2,200 German servicemen of the international contingent in Afghanistan.
"The EU will probably continue keeping Uzbekistan under pressure so as to elicit as many concessions as possible from it," Shermatova said. She assumed that Germany's closeness to Uzbekistan might compel the more critical European countries to bring up the subject of human rights in this Central Asian country. "On the other hand, Brussels knows that it needs Tashkent. It will probably promote a "small step" policy with regard to Uzbekistan." By and large, experts do not expect any dramatic changes in the EU attitude towards official Tashkent.
Aleksei Malashenko of the Moscow Carnegie Center meanwhile suspects that even a minute revision of the sanctions against Uzbekistan indicates a new EU policy. "The EU has changed its tactic and recognized Central Asian countries' right to their own way of development," Malashenko said.
30.04.2008
Ferghana.ru |
Wednesday, 30 April 2008
Uzbekistan
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