In July 2005, however, after Washington pushed for an global investigation of the Andijan incident, the Uzbek government gave USA forces six months to vacate the Karshi-Khanabad Airbase in southeastern Uzbekistan, where some 800 American troops had been stationed since 2001.
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Karimov was derided by Western governments as a dictator who violated human rights, but for many people in Uzbekistan, a mainly Muslim ex-Soviet state which borders Afghanistan, he is the only head of state they have ever known. “The relative calm suggests that there is agreement on a successor-whether this was reached prior to Karimov’s stroke or not is impossible to say with certainty”.
Crowds of people had earlier reportedly lined the road to watch and throw flowers at the cortege as it drove through the capital Tashkent.
“When we found out about his death, my family were all crying, we couldn’t believe it”, said a 58-year- old local man, who refused to give his name.
Islam Karimov has ruled Uzbekistan for more than 27 years.
The funeral rites offered clues as to who might be in the running.
Among potential successors to Karimov are Prime Minister Shavkat Mirziyoyev and his deputy Rustam Azimov.
Karimov’s body was to be flown to Samarkand airport, which on Saturday will be closed to all flights except those with special permission.
Unrest there would have repercussions for Russian Federation, the regional power and home to hundreds of thousands of Uzbek migrant workers, and for the US -allied government in Afghanistan which is fighting its own Islamist insurgency.
The Associated Press cited an unnamed Afghan official as saying President Ashraf Ghani planned to attend Mr Karimov’s funeral on Saturday, and an unnamed Kyrgyz diplomat as saying the country’s prime minister had also been invited to the funeral.
His younger daughter, Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva, said in a social media post on Monday that he was in intensive care. His daughter, dressed all in black, was dabbing her eyes with a white handkerchief.
Whoever succeeds Karimov will need to perform a careful balancing act between the West, Russia and China, which all vie for influence in the resource-rich Central Asian region. The US President Barack Obama remind in a statement the US remained “committed to partnership with Uzbekistan, to its sovereignty, security, and to a future based on the rights of all its citizens”.
Alexei Pushkov, head of the Russian parliament’s foreign affairs committee, retorted on Twitter that Obama “is mistaken if he thinks this new chapter will be written in Washington”.
Karimov was born January 30, 1938 in the city of Samarkand, Uzbekistan.
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Karimov became leader of Uzbekistan in 1989 when it was a Soviet republic, then held power with ruthless determination throughout all of Uzbekistan’s independence.
