Uzbekistan foreign policy briefing

Published on EGF: 08.10.2009

by Dr. Marat Terterov

Key issues:

1. Human rights. Uzbekistan is widely seen as one of the most hard line regimes in the former-Soviet Union – a perception rammed home in alarming fashion when the Uzbek authorities ruthlessly crushed an uprising in the city of Andijon in March 2005. Several hundred civilian deaths resulted. The brutality of the Andijon affair led to a cooling of relations between Tashkent and the West, which included Brussels imposing an EU travel ban on some of the Uzbek officials allegedly involved in the massacre. While the ban has very recently been lifted, the image of the Uzbek regime has remained very poor in the West.

2. Energy security. Despite Uzbekistan’s patchy human rights record, the EU’s obsession with diversifying its sources of energy is forcing Brussels to take a more pragmatic position with Uzbekistan and other Central Asian energy producers. Uzbekistan has established reserves of natural gas and, despite its large population and its own level of domestic gas demand, the country is a possible source of Europe’s future gas supply needs. High level meetings have taken place between Tashkent and Brussels within the context of the EU’s Central Asian neighbourhood policy outlook. Energy security constitutes a large part of the discussions which have ensued between the EU and Uzbekistan.

3. Regime stability. The so-called coloured revolutions in former-Soviet republics are viewed apprehensively in Uzbekistan. They are largely seen within Uzbekistan as foreign-sponsored initiatives intended to create instability and threatening to break up the newly independent states which emerged after the disbandment of the USSR. There is little doubt that Tashkent acknowledges many of the benefits that Western style models of economic and political development can bring. However, the Uzbek authorities tend to suspect donor funded aid projects or NGOs which operate in the name of “civil society”, given that these are viewed as agents fostering political instability. Western efforts to nurture any sense of democratisation in Uzbekistan have largely been unsuccessful, a country where regime stability has shown itself to be one of the government’s top priorities.

4. Outlook. Uzbekistan is in a very early phase of its newfound statehood. There is little doubt that Tashkent would like to foster constructive relations with the EU and other important global regions in order to assist with its nation building program. It wants to have access to European markets for some of its key exports – including cotton and energy – and seeks to promote investment and trade with the EU bloc. It also needs EU assistance with certain strands of its domestic reform process, at the economic, political and institutional levels. However, like many of the states lying on the European periphery, Uzbekistan wants to be treated – as much as possible – as a worthy partner given that it sees itself as a major political power in its Central Asian backyard. While the country has no shortage of its own domestic shortcomings – be it the nature of its own political regime or lack of progress with internal reforms – it has a clear understanding of its value from a geopolitical standpoint. In recent years, this has led to closer relations between Tashkent and Moscow. Although the EU may be over-playing the importance of Uzbekistan’s capacity to contribute to its energy security, it seems that Brussels will gain little by continuing to isolate Uzbekistan over its human rights record. This will lead Tashkent not only closer into Moscow’s fold (which is hardly going to put pressure on Uzbekistan to clean up its domestic political environment), but likewise bring it into closer ties with other regional powers, including Turkey and Iran to the West, and China and the Asian tigers to the East.

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