EU foreign ministers set to ease Uzbekistan sanctions

EU foreign ministers are expected to water down sanctions on Uzbekistan after the regime promised to hold "discussions" on the killing of civilians last year, according to diplomats.

The EU imposed sanctions on President Islam Karimov’s regime last year after Uzbeki security forces shot civilians in Andijan, but they will elapse on 17 November unless they are unanimously renewed by member states.

At a special meeting with EU officials in Brussels yesterday (8 November), Foreign Minister Vladimir Norov proposed a meeting of EU and Uzbek experts before the end of the year to discuss Andijan, while resisting demands for a full independent investigation. Norov also offered to "strengthen" the dialogue with the EU on human rights.

He said during the meeting: "We believe the dialogue on human rights …should not be linked to the Andijan events which had a solely terrorist nature."

Diplomats said that Uzbekistan had only offered to discuss human rights in a sub-committee dealing with justice and home affairs issues rather than at the highest political level.

But the slight movement seems to have been sufficient to convince countries which have been opposed to any easing of sanctions to consider scaling back some of the measures, given the need for unanimous agreement. One EU diplomat said: "We have to be realistic in negotiations because one member state has a veto." A diplomat from another member state said: "Things are going in the right direction."

Possible changes to the sanctions were to be discussed by EU ambassadors today (9 November) ahead of next Monday’s meeting of foreign ministers. One possible option would be to extend some or all of the sanctions for three or six months in order to test the Uzbeks’ sincerity before taking definitive steps, according to one diplomat.

Germany had been leading moves to end all sanctions apart from an arms embargo imposed on the Karimov regime last year. Berlin has argued that the measures, including a visa-ban on 13 officials and a suspension of political and trade relations, should be "revised" because they were not effective. Instead, German diplomats said there should be some dialogue with Uzbekistan to make progress on areas of concern involving human rights and democratisation. German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier visited Karimov as part of a tour of central Asian countries last week.

Germany uses a base in Uzbekistan to support its military mission in Afghanistan. Uzbekistan has the second-largest gas reserves of the former Soviet states after Russia.

But Berlin’s stance and the prospect of easing sanctions have come under fierce fire from human rights groups which argue that softening the measures would reward Karimov without an improvement in the human rights situation.

Michael Hall, director of the International Crisis Group’s central Asian division, said: "Since sanctions were imposed, its crackdown on dissent has not relented so the EU needs to get even tougher."

According to some diplomats, this view was shared by officials in the Council of Ministers’ secretariat and several member states.

But the debate about Uzbekistan has raised concerns that Germany’s plans to launch a strategy for central Asia under its presidency of the EU from next January could be dominated by a concern about security of energy supplies rather than keeping human rights and democratisation.

In an article in European Voice, Neil Melvin, a research fellow at the Centre for European Policy Studies, writes: "The selection of Uzbekistan as the initial focus for the new policy is troubling." The new EU ‘Ostpolitik’ should instead begin with encouraging Kazakhstan’s "concrete progress in political liberalisation", he adds, rather than letting Uzbekistan off the hook.

EU foreign ministers are expected to water down sanctions on Uzbekistan after the regime promised to hold "discussions" on the killing of civilians last year, according to diplomats.

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