ИСТИНА

Uzbekistan is one of the significant states of Central Asia regarding to its relatively high population and military strength to other Central Asian states. We should not forget the fact that Uzbekistan has the most combat-ready and well-equipped armed forces in the region that have direct military experience in special operations in the mountains. Given this, and the presence of a large Uzbek diaspora in neighboring countries, it is easy enough to understand why Tashkent pursues an independent policy and strives for leadership in Central Asia. However, the permanent President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov failed to achieve regional leadership on domestic political and economic reasons. But he was able to solve a number of major policy objectives: to achieve political stability, to suppress the influence of Islamists, to provide external security of Uzbekistan and to hold inter-clan balance. Although Uzbekistan is a landlocked country as other Central Asian, it has no direct border with the Russian Federation as well as China. However, Uzbekistan have border with Afghanistan and with its strategic location Uzbekistan will have a substantial role to play in the future of Central Asia. Nevertheless, the Uzbekistan foreign policy had displayed ups and downs concerning the security and economic regionalization of Kremlin’s foreign policy actions. In the summer of 2012, Uzbekistan suspended its membership in CSTO that is the forthcoming main security organization of the Eurasia and even blocked the passage of Kazakh military vehicles from its territory for the SCO exercises in Tajikistan. On the one hand Uzbekistan perceives that fundamental Islamic movements are a threat to its security and future. On the other hand, Uzbek leadership withdrew from the most important security organization in the region which is actively seeking pre-cautions for the withdraw of NATO from Afghanistan in 2014. In this sense, the aim of this paper will be to analyze the factors behind Uzbekistan’s recent foreign policy activities and conclusions.