Thursday

28th Mar 2024

Brussels pushes for dialogue in Uzbekistan

The European Commission has joined the international community in expressing worry about the weekend's reported massacre in Uzbekistan.

"We are following the events very, very closely and we are deeply concerned about what we see and hear", a spokeswoman for external relations commissioner Benita Ferrero-Waldner said on Tuesday (17 May).

Read and decide

Join EUobserver today

Get the EU news that really matters

Instant access to all articles — and 20 years of archives. 14-day free trial.

... or subscribe as a group

But Brussels has ruled out using its "nuclear option" of trade sanctions for now, urging dialogue and restraint instead.

The EU's relations with Uzbekistan are governed by a Partnership and Cooperation Agreement (PCA) that entered into force in 1999, urging Tashkent to comply with international norms on democracy and human rights.

"The purpose of the PCA is to create a framework for contact between the two sides", the spokeswoman explained. "The fact that there has been no immediate recourse to sanctions or punitive actions does not mean that it's a worthless agreement".

Brussels also pays some 10 million euro a year in development aid to the country.

We need to get in there

At least 500 demonstrators and 10 soldiers were killed when violence erupted in Andijan, near the Kyrgyz border, on May 13.

The actual death toll in the region could be much higher though.

Uzbek leader Islam Karimov blamed the incident on Islamic extremists linked to the nebulous Akronyia group, but most external observers say that the army fired on a grass-roots protest against poverty and unemployment.

Eyewitness statements published by regional news agencies and the UK-based Institute for War and Peace Reporting say that soldiers circled the crowd in armoured vehicles shooting high-calibre machine guns while drinking vodka.

Witnesses also allege that the Uzbek army has begun hiding the corpses of women and children in mass graves.

The UK and the OSCE are currently trying to broker access for international organisations to the region, which has been shut off from diplomats, aid workers and journalists for the past five days.

"Uzbekistan's foreign minister [Ilior Ganiev] has promised our ambassador [David Moran] that we can have access", a British foreign office spokesman indicated. "We've seen the pictures and we've read the reports like everybody else, now we need to get in there".

Meanwhile, the UN has confirmed that 560 Uzbek refugees fled to the Kyrgyz town of Suzac on May 14.

EU considers Uzbekistan sanctions

EU foreign ministers meeting today in Luxembourg are set to impose an arms embargo on Uzbekistan and cut financial support for the central-Asian republic.

US and EU breaking taboos to restrain Israel

The US abstained and all EU states on the UN Security Council backed a call for an "immediate ceasefire" in Gaza, as Europe prepares to also blacklist extremist Israeli settlers.

EU warns Russia over Moscow terror attacks

Europe has warned Russia not to use the weekend's terror attacks in Moscow as a pretext to escalate its war in Ukraine and crackdown on internal dissent.

Opinion

Why UK-EU defence and security deal may be difficult

Rather than assuming a pro-European Labour government in London will automatically open doors in Brussels, the Labour party needs to consider what it may be able to offer to incentivise EU leaders to factor the UK into their defence thinking.

Latest News

  1. Kenyan traders react angrily to proposed EU clothes ban
  2. Lawyer suing Frontex takes aim at 'antagonistic' judges
  3. Orban's Fidesz faces low-polling jitters ahead of EU election
  4. German bank freezes account of Jewish peace group
  5. EU Modernisation Fund: an open door for fossil gas in Romania
  6. 'Swiftly dial back' interest rates, ECB told
  7. Moscow's terror attack, security and Gaza
  8. Why UK-EU defence and security deal may be difficult

Stakeholders' Highlights

  1. Nordic Council of MinistersJoin the Nordic Food Systems Takeover at COP28
  2. Nordic Council of MinistersHow women and men are affected differently by climate policy
  3. Nordic Council of MinistersArtist Jessie Kleemann at Nordic pavilion during UN climate summit COP28
  4. Nordic Council of MinistersCOP28: Gathering Nordic and global experts to put food and health on the agenda
  5. Friedrich Naumann FoundationPoems of Liberty – Call for Submission “Human Rights in Inhume War”: 250€ honorary fee for selected poems
  6. World BankWorld Bank report: How to create a future where the rewards of technology benefit all levels of society?

Join EUobserver

EU news that matters

Join us