The Uzbek approach to dealing with radicalisation and extremism has evolved from tough and uncompromising measures to a flexible and accommodative approach.
India needs to rope in one or more of the Central Asian countries, preferably Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, in the Chabahar project, to fully exploit its potential.
While it was difficult to delve into the depth of the country’s internal dynamics, the overall impression one got was that the democratic process is making marked progress, albeit as per Uzbekistan’s own political ethos and traditions.
Everything is geopolitical in Central Asia where the newly independent state (NIS) Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan are located. In other words, the major international political events in the region and most fateful political turns in regional developments bear, or are saturated with, geopolitical essence.
Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh concluded his two-day state visit to Uzbekistan on April 26, 2006. This was the second visit by an Indian Prime Minister to Tashkent since Uzbekistan's independence in August 1991. India and Uzbekistan signed seven agreements in the fields of energy, business, education, mineral prospecting and stepping up the joint fight against international terrorism, religious extremism and drug trafficking. This has undoubtedly increased Indian stakes in Central Asia.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is visiting Tashkent April 25-26, 2006 on a two-day state visit to Uzbekistan at the invitation of the Uzbek President, Islam Abduganievich Karimov who himself had visited India in April 2005. The visit will mark a new chapter in Indo-Uzbek relations.
A series of disturbing events— from the Tashkent bombing in February 1999 to the May 13, 2005 incidents in Andijon city in Ferghana Valley of Uzbekistan— have drawn attention to the growing role of the religious extremist forces in Central Asia. The Islamic Movement of Turkestan (IMT), also known as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) until the middle of 2003, and the Hizb-ut-Tahrir (HT) – the two leading extremist groups— have openly declared their objective of overthrowing the constitutional system and to create an Islamic state in Central Asia.
