The EU decided to impose an arms embargo on Uzbekistan last fall after Tashkent refused to allow an international investigation into a bloody uprising in the southeastern city of Andijan in May 2005, which left hundreds dead and wounded.
The sanctions were due to expire Tuesday, but EU foreign ministers meeting in Brussels decided to extend the arms embargo for 12 months, and the visa ban for six months.
The ministers, however, relaxed the EU's stance with a decision to resume frozen ministerial-level contacts within a EU-Uzbek partnership program in response to last week's proposal by the Uzbek Foreign Ministry to launch contacts between experts to analyze the Andijan tragedy.
Uzbek authorities claimed the Andijan uprising May 12-13 of last year was masterminded by Islamic extremist groups linked to international terrorist organizations. Official statistics said 187 people died in the ensuing violence, including 60 civilians and 31 policemen.
But human rights groups said more than 700 protesters were killed in the bloodshed, provoked by the arrests and trial of Uzbek businessmen on religious extremism charges, and that thousands of refugees fled the city, mainly to neighboring Kyrgyzstan, the U.S. and Russia.
In 2006, Uzbek courts closed around a dozen European and U.S-based non-governmental organizations (NGOs) on charges of allegedly acting outside their charters and other legal violations, and of supporting opposition forces and attempting to discredit the Andijan events.
A list of NGOs expelled this year includes Crosslink Development International, the Urban Institute, Winrock International, the Eurasia Foundation, Freedom House, the International Research and Exchanges Board, the American Bar Association, Counterpart International, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, and the American Council for Collaboration in Education and Language Study (ACCELS), according to IRIN, an independent news service within the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
