Karimov's European Visit Confirmed

Uzbek President Islam Karimov will visit Belgium on January 24 to meet the President of the European Commission (EC), Jose Manuel Barroso, the Belgian authorities and officials at NATO HQ, a spokesman for the EC has confirmed.

The visit marks Uzbekistan's official return to the European fold since the European Union (EU) lifted sanctions imposed on the Central Asian state after government troops fired on protestors in Andijan killing hundreds of people in 2005. Uzbekistan resisted all calls for an international investigation into the event, and human rights groups have expressed concerns about the implications of EU recognition of Karimov's dictatorship.

But officials at the EU deemed the sanctions ineffective and they were lifted in 2008, a move which prompted sharp criticism from human rights organizations. A year later an arms embargo was also removed.

Within days of the arms embargo being scrapped, Uzbekneftegaz announced the EU was “ready to develop cooperation on mutually beneficial terms” with the state-owned gas and oil company.

Uzbekistan’s strategic importance continues to grow as US and NATO forces become increasingly reliant on goods delivered via the Northern Distribution Network, a logistics line stretching from Western Europe to the Uzbek-Afghan border.

However, Jose Manuel Barroso, seems to gearing up to meet as many
resource-rich but democracy-poor autocrats as he can in the month of January; by next Monday he’ll be able add Karimov to a list that includes Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev and Turkmenistan's President Gurbanguly
Berdymukhamedov.