Translated material
Samarkand nodes of Putin and Karimov
Moscow and Tashkent do not lose hope for rapprochement
Even on the eve of Vladimir Putin’s arrival in Samarkand yesterday, the city was almost completely blocked; on that day, President of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov flew here. At the airport of his hometown, he met Putin in person at 6 o’clock in the morning. The Uzbek president ignored the guest’s persistent requests not to worry at such an early hour, however, according to Uzbek protocol officials, Karimov decided in this way to emphasize his special respect for the Russian president.After talking briefly, Islam Karimov went to his residence to rest a little, and Putin went to see the sights of ancient Samarkand. Then he advised those journalists who had not been here yet to definitely do so: “there is something to see here.”
After Putin’s excursion, negotiations between the two presidents began in the fashionable office of the Samarkand khokimiyat (administration). They took place alone and lasted much longer than planned, almost three hours. Coming out to the journalists, Mr. Karimov, looking at his watch, especially noted this fact, apologizing, however, for being late. As it turned out, the time was well spent. Having abandoned the preliminary agenda, the presidents tried to discuss all the pressing issues of bilateral relations. Chief among them is the falling volume of mutual trade over the past two years. The reasons for this are both objective (cotton harvest failures in Uzbekistan in the last three years, multiplied by the fall in world cotton prices) and subjective. The Russian side includes strict currency regulation in Uzbekistan, state control over the sale of liquid goods, the inconvertibility of the Uzbek som, the requirement for prepayment in hard currency... All this complicates the activities of Russian business in Uzbekistan.
However, responding to these reproaches yesterday, Islam Karimov said that not only Russians have similar problems, but also Japanese, American, German, and Korean companies operating in Uzbekistan. And secondly, almost all these difficulties are already in the past. By the end of this year, according to Mr. Karimov, Uzbekistan will sign Article 8 of the IMF Charter, which provides for the complete conversion of the national currency. It is worth noting that Tashkent made similar promises three years ago, but then was forced to take them back, trying to protect its economy and gold and foreign exchange reserves from the consequences of the Asian economic crisis.
But Russian-Uzbek relations have another long-standing unresolved problem - the Uzbek debt to Russia in the amount of about $640 million. However, Tashkent does not fully recognize these estimates from Moscow, refusing to count Russian technical loans provided to Uzbekistan in the first half into its national debt 90s, considering them partly as debts of economic entities incurred without state guarantees. On this occasion, several years ago the Uzbek parliament even adopted a corresponding resolution. And, as Russian Minister of Industry, Science and Technology Ilya Klebanov, who accompanied Putin in Samarkand as co-chairman of the Russian-Uzbek Intergovernmental Commission (IGC), stated in an interview with the Vremya Novostey newspaper, “without solving the problem of Uzbek debt, it is difficult for us to move forward.” Perhaps for this reason, for the third year, since April 2001, the next meeting of the IPC has been postponed.
Who knows, maybe it was precisely because of this uncompromising position that Mr. Klebanov lost his post as co-chairman of the commission yesterday in Samarkand. In fact, the only concrete result of the negotiations between Putin and Karimov was yesterday the decision to update the leadership of the intergovernmental commission; on the Russian side it will now be headed by Deputy Prime Minister Boris Aleshin, and on the Uzbek side by the Prime Minister. And in September, according to Mr. Karimov, the commission should resume its work. It is characteristic that yesterday the leaders of the two countries preferred not to mention the painful problem of debt at all...
Putin and Karimov paid no less attention to gas cooperation between the two countries. Here they were noticeably more optimistic. Recent negotiations in Tashkent with the head of Gazprom Alexey Miller were considered successful. And the prospects for strategic partnership in the gas industry, Vladimir Putin argued, have every chance of being realized. Mr. Karimov was even more specific: “We are interested in Gazprom’s work in the exploration and production of Uzbek gas and in modernizing the transport infrastructure. We also believe that Gazprom should be the operator not only of the Russian section of the existing Central Asia-Center gas pipeline, but also of its Kazakh and Uzbek sections.” Obviously, this approach strengthens Russian positions in negotiations with Turkmenistan, which is seeking to build a new gas pipeline, bypassing Uzbekistan, along the Caspian coast.
According to the Vremya Novostey newspaper, the “Turkmen problem” was also discussed during the closed rendezvous between Putin and Karimov. The fact is that relations between Tashkent and Ashgabat have deteriorated sharply in the last year. Armed conflicts on the border of the two countries, restrictions on the supply of water from Turkmenistan to the system of Karshi irrigation hydrocascades, a significant reduction in the supply of Turkmen oil to the Bukhara oil refinery, due to which this largest enterprise operates with significant underutilization... All this is of great concern to Tashkent, and the Uzbek leader with his inherent he couldn’t help but share this with his Russian colleague.
The Russian president listened carefully to the Uzbek leader’s current Afghan analysis, which is becoming a traditional element of meetings between Putin and Karimov. They also talked about the situation in Iraq, although they did not share the results of the discussion with the press. However, no one asked them to do this. The positions of Moscow and Tashkent here, as is known, are not too close.
Before our departure from Samarkand, one of the engineers at the local airport, terribly embarrassed, asked whether Putin’s visit would finally result in Russian-Uzbek rapprochement. No one decided to either reassure him or disappoint him.