Cooperation agreement signed with US

Government representatives of the United States and the Central Asian Republic of Uzbekistan have signed a broad-based bilateral agreement in a move designed to further cement the fledgling relationship that has grown between the two countries since the 11 September events. The agreement, which provides for economic, political, legal and humanitarian cooperation, as well as an enhanced security arrangement, was signed by US Secretary of State Colin Powell and his Uzbek counterpart, Abdulaziz Kamilov, in Washington on Tuesday. As part of the agreement, Uzbekistan will intensify its commitment to the democratic transformation of its society and the establishment of a genuine multiparty system, as well as implementing economic and structural reforms. Both countries also affirmed their intention to work together to improve training, education, public health and the implementation of environmental protection schemes in Uzbekistan. Uzbek President Islam Karimov is currently visiting Washington, and held talks with President George W. Bush on Tuesday, during which he received Bush's thanks for Uzbekistan's assistance to the US in it's six-month-old "war against terror", which to date has focused almost exclusively on Afghanistan, Uzbekistan's southern neighbour. A White House spokesman, Sean McCormack, told reporters after the meeting that while the talks had focused on strategic issues in Central Asia, Bush had also stressed the importance of economic reform in Uzbekistan and progress in the area of human rights. "Security cooperation, especially on counterterrorism, has opened a new chapter in US-Uzbekistan relations," he said. In the immediate aftermath of the 11 September events, the Uzbek government was quick to realise the benefits that would accrue from assisting the US. It accordingly permitted the deployment in Uzbekistan of 1,000 US search and rescue troops, and agreed to reopen a road bridge, closed for five years because of security concerns, to allow the passage of relief aid to needy Afghans. US officials responded recently by announcing that they would triple aid to Uzbekistan to US $160 million. Marie Struthers, the interim Tashkent representative of the US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), told IRIN on Wednesday that HRW was watching the growing relationship between Bush and Karimov "with very close interest. This is a time when the US enjoys real leverage," said Struthers, "and while we are not overly optimistic, we do hope that this relationship will lead to an improvement in the human rights situation in Uzbekistan." There are said to be as many as 7,000 political and religious prisoners in Uzbek jails, and a recent US State Department report described Karimov's human rights record as "very poor". Struthers said that HRW was "hoping for and expecting" that the US would use this new-found leverage to push for an improvement in the human rights record of the Uzbek government. She said she believed that the registration on 4 March of Uzbekistan's first domestic human rights group was a response to and result of Karimov being invitated to visit Washington and, while she welcomed the move, she hoped that another three domestic human rights groups which had applied for registration would also be accommodated by the Uzbek government. "This is definitely a positive step, but we have a very long way yet to go."