CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap

ANKARA, 9 Sep 2005 (IRIN) - Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev said in Moscow on Monday that a timetable for the withdrawal of a US military base from his country would depend on the situation in Afghanistan, AP reported. When the situation in Afghanistan had stabilised, Bishkek would reconsider the status of the base, said Bakiyev, who was visiting Russia for talks with President Vladimir Putin.

Bakiyev added though, that he had told US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld at a recent meeting that Washington should pay a higher rent for using the base. In 2001, Kyrgyzstan and its neighbour Uzbekistan allowed the United States to open military bases on their territories to back its war against terror in neighbouring Afghanistan.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, which includes Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, issued a statement in July calling for a deadline for a US military withdrawal from its member countries. Uzbekistan has already ordered US troops to leave the country in the next few months.

On Tuesday, Washington said it had no plans to ask Turkmenistan to host a US military base after Uzbekistan ordered the closure of its base there. "The United States has no plans to establish military bases in Turkmenistan," US Ambassador to Turkmenistan, Tracey Ann Jacobson, told AP. She added that the chief of US Central Command, Gen. John Abizaid, had not raised the subject during his meeting with Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov in August.

In Tajikistan, an activist of an opposition Islamic party is being tried in the south of the country on charges of slander and inciting religious discord, a party official told AP on Monday. Kalandar Sadriddinov, the Islamic Renaissance Party (IRP) leader in Khatlon region, called the trial of Faiz Saifiddinov, which opened on Wednesday, "a show aimed at discrediting" their party.

Saifiddinov was arrested in May on allegations of insulting official Islamic clergy while campaigning for his party before the February parliamentary elections. The penalty he could face if convicted was not announced. The IRP is the country's largest opposition group. It fought against the ex-Soviet republic's secular government in a 1992-1997 civil war, which ended with a power-sharing agreement. In recent years, the party has accused authorities of attempts to undermine its influence.

Staying in the mountainous republic, a senior European Union (EU) official on Wednesday pledged more border control and security assistance to impoverished Tajikistan to help the Central Asian country fight the flow of illegal drugs. Speaking after talks with President Emomali Rakhmonov, Jan Kubis, the EU's special representative for Central Asia, said that European countries needed to speed up technical assistance programmes to help the ex-Soviet republic tighten border security.

Kubis did not specify the amount or the form of the assistance. Western countries have increased border control assistance to
Tajikistan due to the scheduled withdrawal of Russian troops this year, which raised concerns about a possible increase in drug smuggling from neighbouring Afghanistan.

On the health front, an increase in tuberculosis (TB) in Tajik prisons has been recorded. Since the beginning of 2005, 35 people had died of the disease in prisons, Bahrom Abdulhaqov, deputy head of the Tajik Justice Ministry's directorate for correctional affairs, told the local Avesta news agency on Wednesday.

Abdulhaqov said that 33 TB patients had died in the same period of last year. "The total number of TB patients registered in Tajikistan's correctional facilities has reached 1,600," Abdulhaqov said. Moreover, 92 HIV-positive people are held in the country's jails and isolated instances syphilis had been reported, he said.

Kazakhstan's parliament on Wednesday formally approved 4 December as the date for a presidential vote in which veteran President Nursultan Nazarbayev was virtually assured of re-election, Reuters reported. Nazarbayev, who has run the Central Asian nation since 1989, is likely to be challenged by Zharmakhan Tuyakbai, a former loyalist who joined the opposition after a flawed parliamentary election last September.

A day earlier Kazakh opposition groups accused authorities of attempting to prevent the expected release of a jailed opposition politician until after December's presidential election. Leaders of the opposition For a Fair Kazakhstan alliance said prison authorities had disciplined Galymzhan Zhakiyanov on Sunday for allegedly skipping work - something that could mar his disciplinary record and prevent his expected early release on probation on 2 October.

Western countries have criticised Zhakiyanov's jailing in 2002 as politically motivated persecution. "Authorities are trying to find any excuse not to release Zhakiyanov in this politically active period ahead of the presidential vote," said Zharmakhan Tuyakbai, leader of For a Fair Kazakhstan. Opposition leader Gulzhan Yergaliyeva said Zhakiyanov had been disciplined without grounds and the authorities' failure to release him in October would cast doubt on President Nursultan Nazarbayev's pledge to hold free and fair elections.

Meanwhile, Astana has drafted a plan to fight and prevent crimes linked to human trafficking in 2006-08, the justice ministry's press service stated on Tuesday. The plan, consisting of 12 chapters, includes "helping NGOs involved in fighting human trafficking, providing professional training to staff of law-enforcement bodies and drafting international agreements with countries affected by human trafficking on legal assistance on criminal cases and extradition".

In addition, the plan envisages: providing financial aid to the country's citizens trafficked to foreign countries; monitoring the activities of job agencies, organisations offering visa support services and dating agencies; and setting up temporary accommodation for victims of human trafficking. Human trafficking from Central Asia is a growing problem - mainly involving the sexual exploitation of young women.

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