In February 1999, a series of major bombings in the Uzbek capital of Tashkent altered the face of Uzbekistan's government. The bombings caused a shift from a foreign policy based on nationalism to one focused on counter-terrorism. In this article, the impact of this shift on Uzbekistan's relations with 'greater Uzbekistan', the other former Soviet states, and the outside world are discussed.

William D. Shingleton was a U.S. delegate to the July 1999 "Six plus Two" talks in Tashkent. He is currently a Senior Fellow at the National Defense Council Foundation (NDCF) in Alexandria, Virginia. John McConnell is a Research Analyst at NDCF.

On the morning of February 16, 1999, a massive car bomb exploded less than 200 meters away from Uzbekistan's President Islam Karimov's motorcade as it approached Independence Square in central Tashkent. Simultaneously, five other bombs detonated at key points around the Uzbek capital, killing 16 people and injuring 124.

Karimov quickly blamed Islamic militants for the bombings, threatening to "cut off their hands." The bombings led to thousands of arrests, ending a period of reform that some diplomats called the 'Tashkent Spring'. The bombings also forced Karimov to change the focus of Uzbekistan's foreign policy from one of ideology-based nationalism to one of combating Islamic extremism. This change in foreign policy orientation has profound implications for Uzbekistan's 24 million people, and also for a Russia determined to dominate Central Asia and a West interested in the region for its rich natural resources.

Ideology

Upon attaching independence in 1991, the Karimov regime decided to build national self-awareness through nationalism. The Karimov regime promoted the veneration of figures from Uzbekistan's past, particularly the 14^th century conqueror Tamerlane. In seizing the mantle of Tamerlane's heir, Karimov justified a resurgence of Tamerlane's authoritarianism and aggressiveness.

Claiming that "peace and stability are our most important accomplishments", the regime worked to create a discourse based upon the ideas of national strength and stability. When that discourse was made to look hollow by the bombings, Karimov's foreign policy was shaken to its foundations. Uzbekistan's relationships with three key sets of countries-"greater Uzbekistan", other regional powers, and the West-changed radically as counter-terrorism replaced nationalism as Tashkent's main objective.

In Search of "Greater Uzbekistan"

Ethnic Uzbeks are spread throughout Central Asia, with particularly large diaspora populations in neighboring Tajikistan and Afghanistan. For Uzbekistan, protection of this diaspora was a critical component of nationalist ideology, which held that Uzbeks as a people were regaining their rightful place internationally. Tashkent acted to protect ethnic Uzbeks, in the process ignoring Tajikistani and Afghanistani sovereignty. Nationalist Uzbek scholars supported this outlook by claiming that the Tajiks were just Uzbeks who had forgotten their mother tongue. Even today, Uzbek diplomats claim that Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are "one nation speaking two languages".

After Tajikistan's government was overthrown in 1992 by the United Tajik Opposition (UTO), Tashkent worked to put into power Immoli Rahmonov, a former Soviet bureaucrat whom it was thought would be amenable to Uzbek interests. However, Rahmonov soon turned on Tajikistan's ethnic Uzbek population, thereby eliciting a second round of Uzbek interventions. Two incursions from Uzbek territory in 1997 and 1998 respectively failed to oust Rahmonov.

In Afghanistan, Uzbekistan supported the ethnic Uzbek warlord Rashid Dustum. After the mujahedin, who ousted the Soviets, began to fight each other, Uzbekistan supplied Dustum military and logistical assistance. When the ethnic Pathan Taliban overran opposition forces from 1995-1997, Uzbekistan broadened its assistance to include the members of the so-called Northern Alliance, a coalition of Uzbek and Tajik militias.

But Uzbekistan's interventionism would come back to haunt Karimov. The UTO and later the Taliban welcomed the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU), a militia dedicated to establishing an Islamic state in Uzbekistan. According to the Uzbek government, the perpetrators of the February bombings were recruited, trained, and equipped in UTO and Taliban-held territory. Since the bombings, the prime concern of the Uzbek government has been neutralizing these bases.

Rahmonov initially resisted pressuring the UTO to give up IMU members. By the spring of 1999, Karimov and Rahmonov apparently cut a deal whereby Uzbekistan would stop supporting the insurgents in exchange for Tajikistan's expelling the IMU. Rumors of this deal sparked an aborted IMU invasion of Uzbekistan in mid-1999. Tajikistan reportedly expelled the forces of the IMU to Afghanistan in late 1999. However, Rahmonov's animosity toward Karimov remained. When the IMU launched another invasion in the summer of 2000, Tashkent was incredulous when Rahmonov denied involvement in the invasion. "Where did they come from?" asked Uzbek Ambassador to Washington Sodyq Safaev, "the moon?"

Uzbekistan's relations with the Taliban mirror those with Tajikistan. Karimov's warm treatment of the Taliban delegation during the July 1999 'Six plus Two' peace talks in Tashkent sparked rumors that Karimov would recognize the Taliban. In reality, Tashkent began secret contacts with the Taliban, sending Foreign Minister Kamilov to visit the Taliban's Qandahar headquarters. The rapprochement accelerated in September 2000 when the Taliban captured Taloqan, severing the Northern Alliance's supply lines. In October, Karimov publicly renounced his prior condemnation of the Taliban, saying that they pose no threat to the region. Later that month, Uzbekistan agreed to an exchange of high-level delegations and opened the border, re-igniting speculations that a terrorist-for-recognition deal was in the works.

Uzbekistan and Regional Powers

According to Uzbek state ideology, Tashkent claimed that the Uzbek nation was finally taking its rightful place as the heirs of Tamerlane, and as such should be the leader of Central Asia. Since neighboring states, particularly Russia, Kazakstan, and Turkey, had similar aspirations to regional leadership, Uzbekistan's ideology was a recipe for tension.

Uzbekistan moved in recent years to separate itself from Russia. In 1991, Russia was Uzbekistan's largest trading partner, the ruble was Uzbekistan's official currency, and Russian troops patrolled Uzbekistan's borders. By 2000, Uzbekistan's new currency and import-substituting policies cut trade with Russia to only 15% of total trade turnover. Moreover, Uzbekistan is the only Central Asian nation which is not host to Russian troops. In February 1999, Uzbekistan announced that it would drop out of the Commonwealth of Independent States Collective Security Treaty-a major slap on the face of Russia, for whom the treaty is a vehicle by which it can intervene in former Soviet states. Indeed, when Tashkent was bombed just days after Uzbekistan dropped out of the Treaty, many speculated that Moscow was responsible.

Uzbekistan's pretensions to regional leadership particularly grated on Kazakstan, an oil-rich state that inherited Soviet nuclear weapons. With Central Asia's second-largest population and more political experience than Karimov, Kazak President Nazarbaev has had a tumultous relationship with Karimov. At times, the relationship has degenerated into petty conflicts, for example, Karimov's refusal to sign on to proposals made by Nazarbaev, and vice versa, and if Nazarbaev wins an award, Karimov has to win the same award, and so on.

Many Western observers initially hoped that Turkey would replace Russia as the region's dominant power. However, tensions between Uzbek and Turkish nationalists quickly soured the bilateral relationship. Turks aroused tensions by calling the Uzbek language mispronounced Turkish, and undertook actions that led Uzbeks to believe that Turkey simply sought to replace Russia. Tashkent chafed at Turkish chauvinism, while Turkey increasingly tried to portray itself as the 'elder brother' to the Turkic peoples of Central Asia. When the Islamist Refah party came to power in Turkey, it ended any hope of cooperation with the secular Karimov regime.

In the post-bombing era, Uzbek relations with the regional powers increasingly depend on the willingness of these powers to help Karimov hunt down his opponents. For example, when Putin traveled to Tashkent after becoming president, Karimov commented that Uzbekistan sees "in Russia a country, a power, which together with us is capable of resisting the expansion of international terrorism and religious extremism." Moscow, which claims that the perpetrators of apartment bombings in Russia are connected to the Tashkent attack, warmed to the Karimov regime, arresting Uzbek fugitives in Russia and providing Tashkent with security assistance.

Uzbekistan's relations with Kazakstan also improved. The Uzbeks and Kazaks participated in a joint raid on a radical Islamic training camp in Kazakstan, and the Kazaks donated ammunition and other supplies to a Tajik-Uzbek-Kyrgyz effort against the IMU. However, Uzbek-Kazak relations continue to be tense. In January 2000, Uzbekistan unilaterally demarcated a disputed mutual border. Nonetheless, compared with the situation in 1998, relations are dramatically improved.

By contrast, Uzbekistan's relations with Turkey deteriorated because of Ankara's resistance to Tashkent's hunt for opponents. Uzbekistan recalled its students from Turkish universities and closed Turkish-run schools in Uzbekistan. In turn, Ankara recalled its ambassador from Tashkent in mid-1999. Moreover, Turkey invited Muhammed Solikh, the alleged mastermind of the bombings, to the 1999 Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) summit in Istanbul. Since Ankara's support for Solikh and other dissidents is rooted in domestic Turkish politics, Turkey and Uzbekistan seem to be on a permanent collision course.

Uzbekistan and the West

Recognition by the West was critical to the idea that Uzbekistan was taking its place in the first rank of sovereign nations. Uzbekistan quickly joined a series of Western organizations, including the OSCE, the United Nations, and NATO's Partnership for Peace. In 1998, Uzbekistan's UN delegation trailed only Micronesia and Israel in voting with the United States 90.9% of the time. In a bizarre 1996 incident, Uzbekistan's UN delegation even cast an unauthorized vote against the UN General Assembly's annual condemnation of the U.S. embargo on Cuba. Uzbekistan also hosted an OSCE summit on human rights after U.S. diplomats warned that Uzbekistan's human rights record was preventing a summit with President Clinton.

Uzbekistan chafed at Western criticism of its post-bombing crackdown. Ambassador Safaev indirectly criticized Western pressure on human rights when he commented that "Russia supports all means of action against terrorists and does not lecture us on how to do it." Currently, Uzbek diplomats often reply to Western criticism of its human rights records by claiming that the West ignores the rights of the bombing victims. A sharp exchange between Foreign Minister Kamilov and Western delegates at the OSCE in July 1999 is indicative of the current relationship. After being questioned about the beating of human rights activist Mikhail Ardzinov, Kamilov not only responded that Ardzinov was lying, but assailed the OSCE Secretariat for not sending a condolence message in response to the February bombings.

Conclusion

Uzbekistan is not unique among nations in its attempt to downplay ideology in its foreign relations. After the Russian civil war in 1919-1921, the Soviets decided to build "socialism in one country" at the expense of global revolution. The war with Iraq forced Iran to accept arms from the United States, which it had previously decried as "Great Satan." What is remarkable is that it took eight years for Uzbekistan to break from the ideological underpinnings of its foreign policy-testimony to the relatively peaceful security environment that initially followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. But as the security environment has become less stable, and as Uzbekistan is forced to deal with threats ranging from narcotics traffickers to terrorists, Tashkent had to change its world outlook to survive.

The result is that the days of easy Western influence over Tashkent are gone. Accusations over Uzbekistan's human rights record are more likely to sour the bilateral relationship than to provide relief for dissidents. In contrast, cooperation on counter-terrorism can open doors outside the security sphere. American-Uzbek relations recently warmed because the Secretary of State, CIA Director, and other security officials visited Tashkent to deliver counter-terrorism assistance. The U.S. recently designated the IMU as a terrorist group. Like it or not, it is this help with counter-terrorism that must be the cornerstone of relations with Uzbekistan in the post-bombing era.