MOSCOW, November 14 (RIA Novosti) - Monday's talks in the Kremlin between Russian President Vladimir Putin and his visiting Uzbek counterpart, Islam Karimov, culminated in an alliance agreement, envisaging dramatic expansion of economic and security cooperation.
Summing up the talks at a news conference, President Putin said the agreement would take the two nations "to the closest possible degree of interaction."
He said Russia and Uzbekistan would try to achieve stability and progress in the region, primarily by cooperating through the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional security confederation including Russia, Uzbekistan, three other former Soviet nations in Central Asia, and China.
Putin said Uzbekistan was one of Russia's major economic partners in Central Asia, with bilateral trade having grown threefold in 2004 to hit $1.5 billion, and set to top $2 billion this year. He also identified energy, food, and light industry as priority sectors for Russian-Uzbek economic cooperation.
Karimov said he wanted Russia's Central Asian presence strengthened. He told reporters that "consolidation of Russia's presence in Central Asia will be a reliable guarantee of peace and stability in the region," something that would benefit Russia as well as Uzbekistan and the rest of the world.
Russia's new alliance with the Uzbek leader is being forged amid Karimov's increasing isolation from the West, with U.S. and European leaders criticizing him for violent suppression of protests in the city of Andijan in May, and accusing him of many other human rights violations.
Uzbek authorities say the Andijan uprising was staged by Islamic radicals and that 187 people were killed in the violence, most of them militants. Western human rights groups say, however, that more than 700 people, mostly unarmed civilians, were killed.
