Karimov Quells Russian Gas Fears

The Moscow Times ^ | January 26, 2009

[pobeda1945]

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan — Uzbek President Islam Karimov pledged Friday to support a new trans-Russian gas pipeline, easing Moscow's fears that it would succumb to European pressure to bypass Russia with its energy supplies and reduce its influence in the region.

Karimov told President Dmitry Medvedev that Uzbekistan had offered to sell 16 billion cubic meters of gas to Russia this year and could double that amount within the next decade.

"We are ready to work with Russia on the construction of new pipelines that would enable us to boost exports and transit of gas," Karimov told reporters in the Uzbek capital Tashkent.

Uzbekistan has troubled Moscow by seeking better ties with the West. Analysts say Medvedev's visit is part of a push to reassert Russian influence in the region.

The European Union, alarmed by a two-week disruption in Russian gas supplies via Ukraine this month, wants Central Asia to feed its Nabucco pipeline project, which would bypass Russia. It would also use gas from the Caspian.

Karimov, however, said Uzbekistan was happy with a new price formula offered by Moscow and would back the new pipeline.

The two pipelines are not mutually exclusive, and Uzbekistan last year started work on another route to China.

Gazprom buys Central Asian gas and sells it on to Europe. Moscow wants to protect its control over these flows and relies on a steady supply of Uzbek, Turkmen and Kazakh natural gas.

Karimov said actual sales of Uzbek gas to Russia this year would be lower than the 16 billion cubic meters offered because of technical limitations.

But he said Uzbekistan could export twice as much in the future once LUKoil starts producing 16 billion cubic meters of gas per year there by 2015.

Karimov, who withdrew Uzbekistan from a Moscow-led regional economic cooperation group, assured Medvedev that he saw the Kremlin as the key player in Central Asia.

"Russia is a country which has always been present in this region and a country which has defined politics and the balance of forces here," he said.

He also took Medvedev on a tour of the ancient city of Samarkand, in central Uzbekistan, where they visited a bazaar, carpet weaving shop and mosque.

Uzbekistan became Moscow's closest ally in the region after the West imposed sanctions in 2005 in response to a security crackdown in the Uzbek town of Andijan.

The Uzbek authorities said they were putting down an uprising by armed militant Islamists, but witnesses said many of the victims were unarmed civilians.

Tashkent, which denied civilian deaths, evicted a U.S. military air base. But after some sanctions were lifted, U.S. troops were allowed to use another Uzbek air base.

President Dmitry Medvedev listening to Uzbek President Islam Karimov during a tour of Samarkand late last week.

[autumnraine]

Nice guy.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islom_Karimov

Karimov became an official in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, becoming the party’s First Secretary in Uzbekistan in 1989. On March 24, 1990 he became President of the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic. He declared Uzbekistan an independent nation on August 31, 1991. He won Uzbekistan’s first presidential election on December 29 with 86% of the vote. The elections were called unfair, with state-run propaganda and a falsified vote count, although the opposing candidate and leader of the Erk (Freedom) Party, Muhammad Salih, had a chance to participate. Shortly after the elections, a harsh political clampdown forced opposition leaders into exile, while many have been issued long-term prison sentences and a few have disappeared.[citation needed]

[autumnraine]

and this

The international community has repeatedly criticized the Karimov administration’s record on human rights and press freedom. In particular, Craig Murray, the British Ambassador from 2002 to 2004, wrote about financial corruption and human rights abuses during his term in office and later in his memoirs Murder in Samarkand [13], pointing to reports of boiling people to death. The United Nations found torture “institutionalized, systematic, and rampant” in Uzbekistan’s judicial system.[14] For several years, Parade Magazine has selected Karimov for being one of the world’s worst dictators, citing to his tactics of torture, media censorship, and fake elections. [15]

In response, the Uzbek government criticized Craig Murray for not behaving like a genuine British ambassador. It informally stated that diplomacy is more about mutual compromise rather than one-handed harsh criticism. For that reason the British government replaced Craig Murray in 2005, not mentioning the fact that the Bush administration and Tony Blair’s government had very close ties to Uzbekistan in their fight against global terrorism.

[Tarpon]

Reagan warned Europe not to do business with the Russian energy bear. They did not listen.