While Uzbeks are confused about growing prices on farmers’ products, and have a hard time figuring out how it was possible to produce “6.8 million tons of grain, more than 8.2 million tons of vegetables and melons” and still use their best in math to calculate miserable salaries and growing expenses on basic needs, President Karimov has sent congratulatory messages to nine political figures on the occasion of the New Year.

Uzbekistan President’s heartfelt greetings were delivered to Hillary Clinton, U.S. Secretary of State, Barack Obama, U.S. President, Christian Wulff, President of the Federal Republic of Germany, Angela Merkel, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, Hu Jintao, President of the People’s Republic of China, Vladimir Putin, Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, Dmitry Medvedev, President of the Russian Federation, Ivan Gasparovic, President the Slovak Republic, and Raul Modesto Castro Ruz, Chairman of State Council and Council of Ministers of the Republic of Cuba.

Even though the latter two were not about the New Years coming, the date of when they were sent qualify them as a part of the Uzbek President’s ‘congratulatory mood’ and overall emphasis on relations with particular countries.

The most important thing in this torrent of messages by Karimov is that out of all countries represented, U.S., Russia, China and Germany are main strategic partners of Uzbekistan. Greetings to Slovakian President are President’s diplomatic protocol duty.

What the heck is Cuba doing on this ‘exclusive list’ of recipients?

President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov has sent a congratulatory note to Raul Modesto Castro Ruz, Chairman of State Council and Council of Ministers of the Republic of Cuba, on the national holiday of that country – Cuba Liberation Day,
the President’s press-service reported.

Moreover, the head of Uzbekistan “wished a kind health and every success to Raul Modesto Castro Ruz, along with peace and prosperity to the entire people of Cuba.”

Is this special attention to Cuba something that differentiates Uzbekistan as a country with multi-vector political course? Or maybe this is just to show others how balled the country is: to put odious Cuban regime leader in one row with the United States and Germany? Or it is just a nice continuation of the Russian-China-Anti-Western-Axis to signal to them that this is how we, Uzbeks, treat our Caribbean partners via its Embassy in Moscow (there’s no permanent Cuban representation in Uzbekistan), and that speculations about democracy by Uzbek government are worth sacrificing for a strong Cuban fidelity?

Cuba and Uzbekistan have good relations on international arena in the part of supporting each other in, for instance, United Nations and its agencies — both have not voted against each other: neither when Western countries try to impose additional sanctions on Cuba, nor when they did the same on Uzbekistan after a bloody suppression of the unrest in 2005 in Andijan.

Thus, political partnership of the two dictatorship regimes are important to be revived with such messages back and forth from time to time — how will the U.S. and its allies react to that, or while security cooperation issue raise will it just ignore and let Uzbek leader play his strategic game to the end, that remains unclear.