The Pentagon will dismantle its airbase in Uzbekistan "without further discussion", a senior US diplomat said yesterday after bilateral talks collapsed in acrimony. "The Uzbek government made it clear that we need to leave the base, and we intend to leave it without further discussion," Daniel Fried, an assistant secretary of state, told Associated Press after meeting President Islam Karimov.
In June, the Karimov government demanded that the US leave within six months, after Washington condemned Uzbek troops for firing on peaceful protesters in the town of Andijan on May 13. The Karimov regime insists 187 people died, while witnesses say that at least 500 died. Yesterday's bitter meeting brings to an effective public end the US's most controversial alliance in the war on terror.
| This is the right decision for us. We can get by without the base, and it's important to condemn Karimov for what he did. |
Relations became openly acrimonious last week when 15 defendants on trial for "organising" the Andijan uprising said they had received money from the US embassy to aid the attack. Mr Fried yesterday dismissed the claim as "ludicrous".
Former hostages began to testify yesterday. Four, held by rebels inside the regional government building, said they were beaten and used as human shields. A fifth, Kudratulla Mamatakhunov, a district judge from Andijan, denied the rebels beat the hostages, and said unprovoked gunfire came from both sides - contradicting previous testimony by the defendants themselves and the other hostages, who said soldiers only fired in response to shooting by rebels. |