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Uzbekistan denies closing border with Kazakhstan
Tashkent (AFP) Nov 25, 2009 Uzbekistan on Wednesday denied reports it had unilaterally sealed its border with Kazakhstan, saying it had only imposed a heightened safety regime to combat the spread of seasonal flu. The border was not closed, but simply operating under "temporary quarantine measures," Uzbekistan's official Jahon news agency reported. On Monday a Kazakh foreign ministry spokesman said that Uzbekistan had unilaterally closed their shared border and that Astana had received no information on the motives for the decision. The Uzbek news agency said, however, that Uzbekistan had informed the Kazakh side about the heightened measures as early as November 13. The agency also lashed out at a privately-owned Russian television channel for reporting the closure and suggested that the report was fabricated in Russia to spoil relations between the two Central Asian neighbours. "On November 23 during its evening news broadcast, Russian channel RBK spread an announcement that 'Uzbekistan had unilaterally and without any explanation closed its border with Kazakhstan'," it said. "No proof was provided.... in the opinion of the Uzbek side, this was done with the purpose of creating an atmosphere of developing tension between the two close states of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan," it continued. Uzbekistan, Central Asia's most populous state, has tense relations with its neighbours and regularly closes borders and turns off gas supplies to Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. Although there have been only a handful of confirmed cases of the deadly A(H1N1) swine flu in Central Asia, governments in the region have been on high alert and rumours of outbreaks have caused considerable panic among the population. The accusation also came as relations between Moscow and Tashkent have plummeted to their lowest point in over a decade over Russian plans to open a military base inside Kyrgyzstan near the Uzbek border. Uzbekistan reacted angrily to the base announcement, and Uzbek President Islam Karimov has visibly snubbed the Kremlin since then by not attending a series of regional meetings hosted by Moscow. Moscow has recently been courting its former Soviet satellites in the region in an attempt to counter what it perceives as a growing US military presence in its traditional geo-strategic backyard. Share This Article With Planet Earth
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