MOSCOW, Nov 14: Russia and Uzbekistan on Monday signed a pact committing the two ex-Soviet allies to helping each other in situations that posed a security threat to either of them. Under the treaty signed by Russian President Vladimir Putin and Uzbek President Islam Karimov, the two countries would each have the right to use the other’s military facilities if their national security came under threat.

“The signing of the accord will juridically fix, in conformity with international laws, the principles of the allied relationship,” Russian foreign ministry spokesman Mikhail Kamynin said in a statement.

The Kommersant newspaper, citing a copy of the accord, said it provided for Russia to help Uzbekistan in the event of any repeat of the violence in Andijan in May.

Moscow has backed the official Uzbek assertion that 187 people died in an insurgency by armed men in Andijan, a view contradicted by witnesses and human rights groups who say troops killed hundreds of unarmed civilians who took the opportunity to hold anti-government protests.

Monday’s signing coincided with the handing of jail sentence by Uzbekistan’s supreme court of between 14 and 20 years to the first 15 people to stand trial over the Andijan violence.

“This accord will seal an unprecedented military-political alliance,” Kommersant said.

“Russia will promise Uzbekistan that it will intervene in case of another Andijan and will assume a role of international advocate for (President) Karimov, who is considered a pariah in the West,” the newspaper said.

Analysts said Moscow was keen to use Uzbekistan’s increasing stigmatization by Western countries to reassert its dominance over the ex-Soviet state.

Tashkent in July demanded that Washington close a US air base in the country close to the Afghan border opened after the Sept 11, 2001, attacks on the United States — a demand that many saw as a response to US calls for an independent inquiry into the Andijan killings.

Russia and Uzbekistan already have in place a loose agreement on mutual air defence. Russian forces held military exercises near Tashkent in September where they practiced techniques for suppressing an Islamic insurgency.

“Moscow has seized the opportunity to impose itself... This rapprochement reflects the opinion of those circles who consider that Russia must dominate in the post-Soviet area at any cost,” said Alexei Malashenko, an analyst with the Carnegie Moscow Center, a pro-Western think-tank.

Monday’s accord is also expected to shore up trade ties.

Russian gas giant Gazprom earlier this month moved to strengthen its grip on gas exports from ex-Soviet Central Asia, signing a deal with a subsidiary of Kazakhstan’s state energy firm Kazmunaigaz guaranteeing the Russian firm rights to send gas from Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan through Kazakhstan up until 2010. EU EMBARGO: European Union governments banned arms sales to Uzbekistan on Monday and imposed a one-year visa ban on 12 top Uzbek officials they hold responsible for the May killings, the European Council said.

The list of officials banned from entering the EU includes Interior Minister Zakirdzhon Almatov, Defence Minister Kadyr Gulyamov and the head of the National Security Service, Rustam Inoyatov.

The European Council, the EU decision-making body grouping member governments, said the visa ban was ‘aimed at those individuals who are directly responsible for the indiscriminate and disproportionate use of force in Andizhan and for the obstruction of an independent inquiry’.—Reuters