Officials in Washington, according to the Reuters news agency, have said anonymously that the trip is meant to reassure partners in the region that the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan does not signal a decrease in United States interest their security and economic needs.
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He recommended strengthening the borders of the nations of the post-Soviet space, especially those located in Central Asia, which he called an “unfinished business needing a prompt response”.
US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived on Saturday in Kyrgyzstan on his way back from worldwide talks in Vienna aimed at finding a political solution to Syria’s four-year-old civil war.
As a result, he said, they sow distrust among broad sections of the Muslim population, the mistrust in state institutions, and have undermined the traditional values of Islam.
“We have Afghanistan … and all that is linked, and the Tajiks are barely managing – and if the Tajiks can not manage, then it will come to Russia next”, said a Russian government official who spoke on condition of anonymity. “Certainly I think there’s probably a few playing up of those anxieties by a few quarters”.
“I think the danger posed by the Islamic State is in fact less than the danger posed by the regime”, he said, warning that persecution provokes radicalism. “There’s this kind of Soviet system of close regulation of religious practices, and that’s more likely to cause people to turn to resort to violence and rebel against the state”.
“He had undergone a few of our training”.
In Tajikistan, children and youths under 18 are banned from mosques and Islamic seminaries and men with beards-seen as a symbol of their faith-are persecuted.
“Secretary Kerry should take full advantage of the spotlight this week to make clear to each leader in Central Asia – and the region’s citizens – that the status quo on human rights abuses just won’t do”, said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. Kerry will raise USA concerns about human rights at his meetings, the US official said.
Amnesty global says torture and disappearances are endemic in the region, and the State Department’s own annual human rights report is scathing.
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Kyrgyzstan is Kerry’s first stop on his tour of all five countries in Central Asia. The visit is his first to the region and the first in which a U.S. secretary of state is visiting all five Central Asian republics on a single tour.
