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Reuters article: Albright Ends Central Asian Tour
Colleagues -
More on Sec. Albright's visit to Central Asia, and the now famous "rad pagers".
Jim Hardeman
Jim_Hardeman@mail.dnr.state.ga.us
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Albright Ends Central Asian Tour
Updated 7:56 AM ET April 19, 2000
By Elaine Monaghan
TASHKENT (Reuters) - Secretary of State Madeleine Albright wrapped up her tour of Central Asia on Wednesday by praising Uzbekistan customs officers for stopping a shipment of radioactive materials bound for Pakistan earlier this month.
"The United States and Uzbekistan share a common interest in halting terrorism, drug trafficking and the spread of weapons of mass destruction," she told officers and students at the Customs College where she delivered 60 electronic devices of the type which intercepted a truck at Uzbekistan's border with Kazakhstan.
"These are direct threats to our citizens and to yours," she said. Albright left Tashkent to return to Washington after the presentation, with her plane due to stop for fuel in Ireland.
During a tour which began last Thursday, Albright secured a pledge from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan to attend a Central Asian counter-terrorism conference in Washington in June.
Albright's praise for Uzbek customs officials came a day after a meeting with President Islam Karimov in which she said she made little progress in a frank discussion of U.S. concerns about human rights in Uzbekistan.
Albright stressed, however, that the U.S. and Karimov had similar views on the threat of instability in the region.
A combination of civil war in Tajikistan, Islamic militants harbored by the Taliban in Afghanistan, poverty in Central Asian states cast adrift by the collapse of the Soviet Union and drug trafficking have created a volatile situation.
NUCLEAR MATERIAL A MAJOR WORRY
Several guerrilla groups or figures, including the U.S. enemy number one, Osama bin Laden, have been actively seeking to acquire nuclear materials, a senior U.S. official said.
Apart from human rights issues, which are a sore subject for most Central Asian states, Albright's focus since arriving in Kazakhstan on Saturday has been on beefing up border patrols.
She had $3 million in her pocket for Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan to help them train border patrol guards and provide four-wheel drive vehicles for their mountainous borders which are notoriously hard to police.
An inspection van and electronic devices previously given to Uzbek guards helped them intercept the radioactive material aboard the truck on its way to Pakistan, Albright said.
"I'm glad that the pagers and the X-ray inspection system van are being put to good use and I congratulate the Chernayevka (border post) customs officers for a job well done," she said.
Kazakhstan denied allegations that the seized truck contained radioactive substances but admitted some parts of the truck's load of scrap metal were contaminated.
Pakistan denied involvement in the incident, which has strained already tense relations between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.
A senior U.S. official said that whatever was in the cargo, "even if it was just radioactive garbage disposal," the fact that it was intercepted was a good sign.
"The worst case scenario is that it could be stuff that was smuggled for nefarious use but we don't know exactly...it's still under investigation," he said.
Despite the poor record of Central Asian states on elections, treatment of prisoners and press freedoms, the United States is keen to maintain good relations with them. Part of the motivation is to try to check the spread of nuclear materials from the former Soviet Union.
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