Uzbekistan to receive $100MM in U.S. aid for help in anti-terror campaign

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Uzbekistan to receive $100 million in U.S. aid for help in anti- terror campaign

By Timofei Zhukov, Associated Press, 1/12/2002 17:15

TASHKENT, Uzbekistan (AP) The United States is allocating $100 million in aid for Uzbekistan for its support of the U.S.-led military operation in neighboring Afghanistan, a U.S. congressman said Saturday.

The aid to the Central Asian nation so far has been targeted at military training and ensuring security, but will eventually expand to other sectors, U.S. Rep. Jim Kolbe, R-Ariz., told reporters in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent.

Kolbe, chair of the House Appropriations foreign operations subcommittee, was leading a delegation of five U.S. representatives to Central Asia to assess the area's needs and how American foreign aid is being spent.

Kolbe met with Uzbek President Islam Karimov on Saturday and praised him for being so quick to offer use of an air base for the military campaign in Afghanistan, saying it set an example for other countries. More than 1,000 U.S. troops have been deployed to Uzbekistan since October.

In return, Karimov's government has hoped for aid and an end to criticism of its human rights record.

This impoverished former Soviet republic has struggled with Islamic extremist groups that the government sought to suppress with a crackdown on dissent, prompting international alarm. Meanwhile, corruption and Soviet-style economic rules have scared away many investors.

Kolbe confirmed that Uzbekistan overall will receive about $100 million of the $4 billion Congress allocated for fighting terrorism, Kolbe said. But he warned that the aid will be linked not only to the Afghanistan campaign.

''Once the military operation in Afghanistan is complete, I believe the pace of economic assistance in the region will depend in very large measure on the pace of economic reforms,'' he said.

The delegation was to travel Sunday to the Uzbek border city of Termez to visit the Friendship Bridge that crosses into Afghanistan. The long-closed bridge has recently reopened and is a key conduit for international humanitarian aid shipments to northern Afghanistan.

The group will then visit other countries in the region and travel to Rome to visit Afghanistan's exiled 87-year-old king, Mohammad Zaher Shah.

-- Anonymous, January 13, 2002


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