Germany’s Low-Key Uzbekistan Policy

From time to time, I have brought up Germany’s relationship with Uzbekistan to separate principled criticism of the US-Uzbek relationship from criticism of the US-Uzbek relationship as a vehicle for attacking the United States. In other words, those critical of both the US and German policies seem to me a little more serious about policy approaches that improve the human rights situation in Uzbekistan than those who respond with deflecting arguments such as (if one happens to be American) “I criticize the US because it is my country and I cannot be bothered with what Germany does.” I certainly pick up on the differences, but principles are principles and if the US approach has been wrong, so has the German one.

The German-Uzbek relationship–a smaller but in many ways very similar version of the US-Uzbek one–is rarely discussed in most of the media outlets I regularly read. So, it is great that EurasiaNet carries an article on Germany’s debate over its Uzbekistan policy. It should be quite familiar.

The vocal demands made by the United States for an independent Andijan inquiry, and Tashkent’s subsequent decision to send American forces packing have left many German policy makers feeling conflicted. In Berlin, outrage over Uzbekistan’s human rights conduct is weighed against national security concerns. For now, the Termez base issue appears to be tipping that balance in favor of a non-confrontational policy course.

Johannes Pflug, a Social Democratic Party expert on Central Asia, indicated that many German officials are wary about the prospects for long-term cooperation with Uzbekistan, considering Uzbek President Islam Karimov’s administration to be unreliable. He went on to suggest that while German troops appear set to remain at Termez for the foreseeable future, Berlin should consider policy changes. “The policy regarding Termez should not restrain the assessment of [Uzbekistan’s] human rights situation,” Pflug said in an interview.

The opposition Christian Democratic Union, which could regain power in the upcoming elections, has signalled that it wants to maintain the Termez base, although party leaders, like their SPD rivals, feel uneasy about cooperating with Karimov. Christian Schmidt, the party’s spokesman on defence issues, noted that the security situation should be reviewed when Germany’s mission in Afghanistan is scheduled to come up for parliamentary debate in mid October. “The situation will not improve, when one partner of the Afghanistan mission is evicted from Uzbekistan,” Schmidt was quoted as saying by the Spiegel Online website.

Balancing human rights concerns against national security. My goodness, someone get The Guardian on this one! Surely their columnists can simply recycle their attacks on the US-Uzbek relationship.

In all seriousness though, it is interesting how similar the course of the policies have been. Over the past few years, German assistance to Uzbekistan has atrophied much like American aid has. And now German policymakers find themselves in the same position of trying to decide how much of a relationship they should have with an extremely unreliable and uncooperative Uzbek government.