Alain Deletroz of International Crisis Group (ICG) has written a fairly fierce condemnation of EU-Uzbek relations for European Voice. With the three-monthly review of sanctions imposed in November 2006 due imminently, and the EU apparently considering a ’softer’ approach towards Central Asia (as Nathan at Registan reported recently), Mr Deletroz poses some blunt questions:

‘But has any good news reached us from Uzbekistan in the meantime? Has the repression of journalists, human rights defenders or non-governmental organisation members softened? Has the situation in the prisons, in the court rooms – where allegations of torture are never taken into account – improved? Or in the cotton fields, where children are obliged to work in conditions close to slavery? Has the level of small, daily humiliations Uzbeks must swallow from the heavy-handed police in any way diminished? And has the government accepted that a credible independent commission can investigate in Andijan as the EU has demanded from the beginning?’

Mr Peretz urges the EU not to back down on the issue of sanctions, and concludes:

‘The foreign ministers should not shame Europe on 5-6 March by lifting sanctions that might be weak but still send a powerful message to Karimov and all who attempt to behave like him in the region. Softening them now would be a different kind of message, one from a very ‘soft power’ indeed.’

Hmmm. It’s a bit like those letters to British newspapers from ‘Disgusted of Tonbridge Wells’, muttering ’something must be done!’ but without offering any constructive alternatives. It is also indicative of an attitude of ‘one rule for some - one rule for others’ as the e-mail from ICG which alerted me to this piece also carries news of an Middle East briefing paper (No. 21), titled Iran: Ahmadi-Nejad’s Tumultuous Presidency, which states in its overview:

‘By signalling its openness to broad engagement with Iran without preconditions on the nuclear issue, Iraq and bilateral relations, the U.S. would be rendering a far greater and wiser service both to itself and to the region as a whole.’

I appreciate the differences between Iran and Uzbekistan, between the USA and EU, between human rights* and the nuclear issue - but if the ICG is urging the US to negotiate with Iran (on whom it has imposed sanctions) then surely the EU can also negotiate with Uzbekistan, on whom it has, er, imposed sanctions?

ps. I appreciate it may be unfair to compare Mr Deltroz’s think-piece with a totally unrelated briefing paper, but I feel it is a valid comparison, and one worth discussing.

*As if the current Iranian regime has a great record in that area! pah! … and the EU has always prided itself on its ‘constructive dialogue’ with Tehran.