Registan.net

The EU’s external relations commissioner says that she thinks Uzbekistan has changed its thinking and is now willing to respond to EU human rights concerns.

Ferrero-Waldner made the comments a day after taking part in a meeting between an EU delegation with representatives of all five Central Asian countries in the Kazakh capital, Astana.

“I think there is a change in their minds insofar as they have accepted two expert meetings, [the first took place in December 2006] the second one will be there [in Tashkent] on April 2, so very soon after our yesterday’s meeting where we saw the [Uzbek] Foreign Minister [Vladimir Norov], indeed we hand lengthy talks with him,” she said.

One wonders if Ferrero-Waldner missed Foreign Minister Norov’s comments about European criticism of Uzbekistan’s human rights record.

Uzbek foreign minister Vladimir Norov said publicly the EU should not “interfere in domestic affairs…we don’t have to justify ourselves.”

But hey, expert meetings are always good. Once you blaze through all the protocol and bland niceties, one can get down to a little business and fun on the side.

The MEPs’ visit last week - which was treated to the sight of Uzbek president Karimov doing a folk jig with a child held aloft in his arms during a Spring festival - was marked by some of the three German MEPs preferring to meet with local businessmen rather than dissidents invited by the German embassy in Tashkent.

Like I said yesterday, the EU should quit wasting its time. If Uzbekistan wants relations with the West, stand back and require that it actually change its behavior.

Stumble it!