Weekly news wrap

This week in Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan and the US reached an agreement on rental payment for the Manas military airbase close to the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, which was established in the former Soviet republic at the start of the US-led war on terror in late 2001, Xinhua news reported on Saturday. Washington agreed to compensate the Kyrgyz government with goods, services and support, without giving details of the exact amount the US government would pay for continued use, a statement by the US Embassy in Bishkek, read. Staying in Kyrgyzstan, according to officials on Wednesday, six Uzbek citizens were arrested in the southern city of Osh, for their alleged involvement in last year’s bloody crackdown in the southeastern Uzbek city of Andijan and being members of the Islamic group Akramiya, which is banned in Uzbekistan, RFE/RL reported. Andijan is close to the Kyrgyz border, which many survivors fled across following the bloodshed in May 2005. Some rights groups maintain up to 1,000 people may have been killed by Uzbek security forces during the protests, while Uzbek officials place the official death toll at 187. In Uzbekistan, 12 refugees, who fled the crackdown, have reportedly returned to their homeland from the US, RFE/RL reported on Tuesday. The 12 had been granted asylum in the US, but returned after having been given guarantees of safety by Uzbek President Islam Karimov. The office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was not involved in the move. Staying in Uzbekistan, the densely populated country will allow foreign investment in 121 companies operating in strategic sectors, AFP reported on Monday, quoting the government. A list of companies up for partial privatisation, approved by presidential decree, includes those in the oil and gas, cotton, electricity, financial, aviation, railway and chemical sectors. As much as 49 percent of shares will be available in state-owned companies and a total of 1,495 state-run businesses are earmarked for privatisation by 2009, Tashkent announced. Foreign investors who are already in the Uzbek economy include China, Russia, South Korea, Turkey and some western European countries. Uzbekistan has cut gas supplies to Tajikistan, AP reported on Thursday. The Uzbek state gas company, Uztransgaz, said supplies were stopped after “repeated warnings” over Tajikistan’s US $7.3 million gas debt. But last month, officials from the Tajik state gas company Tajikgaz said that the debt was much lower than $3 million. Meanwhile, in Kazakhstan, a leading opponent of President Nursultan Nazarbayev, said on Wednesday that he would set up his own political party, Reuters reported. Zharmakhan Tuyakbai, a former parliamentary speaker, said his new socio-democratic party would not try to join forces with other opposition parties. Tuyakbai was Nazarbayev’s main challenger in last year’s presidential election. Nazarbayev, who has been in power since 1989, won 91 percent of the votes. The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE), of which Kazakhstan is a member, said the elections failed to meet international standards. Also in Kazakhstan, police freed 13 Uzbeks who reportedly had been forced to work under slave-like conditions after being trafficked into the country, where upwards of one million Uzbeks are believed to be working illegally, AFP reported on Thursday. The police said the men and women, two of whom had been raped, were found in the back of a truck in the northwestern region of Aqtobe. Fuelled by poverty and unemployment, many Uzbeks travel to Kazakhstan and Russia in search of jobs annually.