As became clear later, he was not referring to the Khanabad base near the town of Karshi, which the Americans had moved into in the fall of 2001 to use as a staging post in operations in Afghanistan. The closure of that base in late 2005 at the request of Uzbekistan meant a break with the United States.
Tashkent was back in the Russian orbit, it joined the CSTO and EurAsEC, and relations with Moscow after the signing of two cooperation treaties in a row were at an all-time high. Thus Khanabad turned from a military base into a bellwether of change in Uzbekistan's foreign policy: when the Americans came to the base it meant that Uzbekistan's policy veered to the West, and its closure coincided with an about-face in the direction of Moscow.
That is why news of the return of the American military to Uzbekistan caused such a stir in the Russian media. The main question being asked is whether a new revision of foreign policy will follow.
In 2001 when Tashkent and Washington formed an antiterrorist alliance, the situation stood as follows. Having launched military actions in Afghanistan, the allies disrupted an imminent attack by a militant group called the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan. The Islamic Movement's fighters, assisted by the Taliban, were concentrating their forces on the Afghan bank of the Amu-Darya River in readiness for a new, third offensive.
Previous raids, made in 1999 and 2000, had revealed that the Uzbek army was ill-prepared to counter them. Tashkent sought Moscow's help, but attempts to bring Russia and the Collective Security Treaty allies into the war against the Islamists failed. Moscow was preoccupied with Chechnya and had no wish or indeed capacity to open a second front in Central Asia. That led to a falling out: Uzbekistan withdrew from the CST and pointedly joined GUAM (comprising Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Moldavia, all of which were unhappy with Russian policy).
Since then Tashkent has on several occasions sought Moscow's help in the fight against Islamists and even signed contracts for military supplies from Moscow. But the supplies never came, giving fresh proof that relations were at low ebb.
As relations with Russia were cooled, contacts between Uzbekistan and the U.S., especially in the military sphere, became more frequent. In the fall of 2001 Islam Karimov and U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, standing before cameras at Tashkent airport, announced that the Americans would be stationed on the Khanabad base.
America's withdrawal four years later followed its criticism of the Uzbek authorities in crushing a demonstration in Andijan in the spring of 2005. But the new stage in Russian-Uzbek relations had begun much earlier, after the meeting "without ties" between presidents Putin and Karimov in Samarkand in the summer of 2003.
By the time Tashkent told the American military to leave Khanabad, the concept of cooperation between Uzbekistan and Russia had already been formulated in the Treaty on Partnership Relations signed in the spring of 2004 during Vladimir Putin's official visit to Tashkent.
The new rapprochement owed much to the problems of security. By that time Uzbekistan faced new challenges. The Islamic Movement, whose forces were largely destroyed during the American offensive, was replaced by another Islamist group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, which proved remarkably resilient to conventional attacks.
Underground cells sprang up in all the country's regions and quickly spread to neighboring countries from where, so the Uzbek special services suspected, they received financial and material assistance. Tashkent felt that it was impossible to effectively fight the insurgents without coordinating efforts with other Central Asian countries and Russia.
This time around Moscow was ready to play ball.
Hizb ut-Tahrir, like the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, was put on the list of terrorist organizations banned in Russia. That was announced on the eve of the crucial informal meeting between presidents Putin and Karimov in Samarkand. Moscow pulled some strings to induce Uzbekistan's neighbors to blacklist these organizations. After a while the CSTO and the SCO Anti-Terrorist Center formed common lists of terrorist organizations in which Islamists were of course included.
After the tragic developments in Andijan, Tashkent decided to mend its fences with Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, and once again the basis for broader cooperation was provided by bilateral agreements between the Uzbek special services and their counterparts in those countries. As a result persons suspected of anti-government activities were extradited from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Russia to Uzbekistan.
In doing so Moscow often acted in violation of its international commitments, for which it had to pay compensation under the rulings of the International Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg.
Not a single Western country can guarantee Uzbekistan the level of security that its CSO and CSTO partners can deliver. It is unlikely, therefore, that Tashkent will revise the established system. In fact it has transpired that NATO countries need Uzbekistan's help to continue their military operations in Afghanistan.
Tashkent's change of stance, referred to by Robert Simmons at the Moscow press conference, has to do with the German-operated airbase in Termez. Other NATO countries, which had been shown the door after the events in Andijan, including the Americans, will also have access to the base, on condition that they use German planes. It is also reported that a separate agreement with Tashkent would have to be signed each time.
These are fairly tough terms, so there is little ground for speaking about a change of Uzbekistan's policy toward the United States. But the situation in Afghanistan does cause concern in Tashkent, and may mark a new turning point in relations between the two countries.
Judging from the guarded comments of the Western military and by U.S. diplomatic activity, a new international scheme of cooperation is being put in place, which will bring Russia into the solution of the Afghan problem along with NATO. Observers in Tashkent do not rule out the possibility that Moscow was consulted before opening the Termez base to NATO.
It is hard to say whether Uzbekistan will go further in promoting contacts with the Americans. Much will depend on the extent to which the U.S. is ready to moderate its demands to Tashkent over human rights. However, the signs are that a revision is already taking place.
Richard Boucher, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asia, said in reference to Uzbekistan in a recent interview with the Voice of America's Russian service: "We want to see a real solution of outstanding problems connected with the crackdown on NGOs and obstruction of student exchanges."
Significantly, the earlier demands for an international investigation into the Andijan events and respect of the rights of believers, that so antagonized Tashkent, have been dropped.
Even if things do change in the relations between the two countries, they won't happen until the new U.S. administration takes office. The U.S. could find itself back in Uzbekistan as a major player. But even that is a far cry from the situation in 2001, when Washington came to Uzbekistan as the number one ally.
The opinions expressed in this article are the author's and do not necessarily represent those of RIA Novosti.
