Surprise surprise?
Politics and Society, UzbekistanNo Comment
It seems as if the recent Uzbek PR campaign didn’t pay off. The EU’s decision to extend the sanctions in place since November last year has led to disappointment and surprise among Uzbek government officials, reports Eurasianet:
The EU’s move appeared to catch Uzbek officials off guard. “We are very surprised,” an Uzbek government official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “We expected a better outcome. Everything seemed good.”
Whether or not the EU should renew the sanctions was subject to some heated debate. The ICG published a report called “Uzbekistan: Europe’s Sanctions Matter” on the 6 November 2006, around the same time that German FM Frank-Walter Steinmeier was touring the region.
Steinmeier promised Karimov that Germany would lobby for an easing of the sanction regime. The increasingly negative press coverage of its lobbying might have led the German foreign ministry to drop the case for Uzbekistan. But for how long?
Ultimately, EU officials are said to be looking for ways to honorably lift the sanctions. An EU official, quoted by the Russian news agency Itar-Tass, explained that Brussels will seek to use “technical meetings” to promote the human rights improvements that can justify the lifting of sanctions. Such talks “will make it possible to step up the dialogue with Uzbekistan on human rights,” said the EU official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
The decision for prolonged sanctions is subject to review in three months. The travel ban will be discussed again in six months, whereas the arms embargo will be in place until November 2007. The separation of the different embargos might make it easier for the EU to silently drop them if all have different expiry dates.
At a conference in London last week, Andrea Berg of Human Rights Watch said that all it takes is Germany or any other EU country to vote against renewed sanctions, as all decisions have to be unanimous. What is also interesting is that in Germany, the foreign ministry is making decisions about Uzbekistan almost without consultation of the parliamentary expert groups and other ministries.
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