SHANNON, Ireland - US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday urged the central Asian state of Uzbekistan to adopt political reforms to head off future unrest after a wave of protests and a bloody military crackdown.
Rice said US officials was till trying to sort out what happened in Andijan, the eastern Uzbek city where an unknown number of people -- reportedly in the hundreds -- were killed in weekend clashes with government forces.
Uzbek President Islam Karimov, who has ruled the Central Asian republic with an iron fist since its independence in 1991, has blamed the anti-government protests on Islamic radicals. Witnesses have said his soldiers fired indiscriminately into a crowd demonstrating over the trial of 23 local businessmen, killing as many as 500 to 600 people.
"We have been encouraging the Karimov government to make reforms, to make the system more open, to make it possible for people to have a political life," Rice said.
"This is a country that needs, in a sense, pressure valves that come from a more open political system," Rice told reporters on the plane taking her home from a lightning visit to Iraq.
Karimov's government has come under attack from human rights groups for allegedly using systematic torture. But Uzbekistan is a considered a close ally in the war on terror and houses a US military base so Washington has muted its criticisms.
Rice said Washington's main immediate concerns were to prevent further violence, help the refugees fleeing into Kyrgyzstan and "to try to deal with the consequences right now of this set of issues."
"But this kind of problem is also going to be helped if you can get a more open political system in Uzbekistan," she said.
"They really need political reform and we've been saying that to the Uzbeks for some time. I don't mean that they should tolerate terrorists or terrorist groups. Nobody suggests that or is saying that.
"But it is a system that is politically too closed."
05/16/2005 15:41 GMT