The Uzbek announcement came after a visit here by the US chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Richard Myers, as Washington continues to press on with a campaign to secure and destroy weapons of mass destruction in struggling ex-Soviet states.

Myers "informed us of the decision to increase the financing of joint projects by 21 million dollars," Uzbek Deputy Foreign Minister Vladimir Norov said after meeting the US general.

The latest allocation supplements 39 million dollars (31 million euros) that Washington earmarked for joint projects with Uzbekistan in 2001 aimed at preventing proliferation of biological weapons, Norov told journalists.

Among other things the money will be used to develop a system for monitoring infectious diseases, Norov said.

The allocation comes despite an announcement by Washington in July that it was freezing direct aid to this controversial ally due to a lack of political reform by the hardline leadership of Uzbek President Islam Karimov.

Previous non-proliferation projects between the United States and Uzbekistan have included cleaning up a Soviet-era biological weapons facility on an island in the Aral Sea that is split by the Uzbek-Kazakh border.

WAR.WIRE