TASHKENT - A senior Uzbek official on Thursday accused Kyrgyzstan of turning a blind eye to the threat of religious extremism and of knowing about plans for a bloody uprising in the Uzbek city of Andizhan before it happened.
Ties between the Central Asian neighbours were already tense after Kyrgyzstan took in hundreds of refugees from Andizhan, where witnesses said at least 500 people were killed during a May riot, and allowed the United Nations to evacuate them to Europe.
Uzbek Deputy Prosecutor General Anvar Nabiyev said "terrorists" who had taken part in the Andizhan violence had been trained in Kyrgyzstan.
"These facts prove that Kyrgyzstan's law-enforcement bodies and representatives of state power turned a blind eye to the real threat of religious extremism," he told a news conference.
"Doesn't this testify to the fact that the Kyrgyz authorities knew about the planned attack?"
Such strong words are uncommon between Central Asian countries and Nabiyev's comments were likely to have been endorsed by Uzbek President Islam Karimov, who tolerates little dissent and ensures officials toe his political line. Karimov says religious extremists, orchestrated from abroad, are attempting to establish Islamic rule in his Muslim nation of 26 million.
Kyrgyz officials denied the charges.
"If they (Tashkent) have these facts, they should share them with us and we will verify them here. But after all our requests we got only official silence from Tashkent," Vyacheslav Khan, deputy head of Kyrgyzstan's Security Council, told Reuters.
Uzbekistan says 187 people, including 94 that it describes as terrorists, were killed in the May 13 violence in Andizhan.
Human rights bodies have said the Andizhan uprising was triggered by political repression and widespread poverty. They say between 500 and 800 people were killed when government forces shot into a crowd to quell the riot, which was sparked by a trial of 23 Muslim businessmen.
The Uzbek-Kyrgyz crisis illustrates growing tensions in post-Soviet Central Asia where China and Russia vie for influence with the United States.
Russia and China backed the use of force in Andizhan, while the U.S. military was given six months to leave a key Uzbek airbase after Washington repeatedly called for an independent international inquiry into the killings.
Karimov, who has ruled since Soviet days, watched pro-democracy "coloured revolutions" in Georgia and Ukraine with unease. A similar revolt deposed Kyrgyzstan's long-serving leader in March.
"The Kyrgyz leadership chose ... to follow in the footsteps of its new partners," said prosecutor Nabiyev, in a reference to the pro-democracy stance of Kyrgyzstan's new leadership.
Nabiyev also lashed out at Western media, saying many had spread slanderous reports about the events in Andizhan in order to discredit Uzbekistan in the eyes of the world.
Additional reporting by Olga Dzyubenko in Bishkek
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