Top US Official Visits Uzbekistan For Talks

U.S. Undersecretary of State John Bolton is in the Uzbek capital for talks on terrorism, an official at the U.S. Embassy said on Friday. In Washington, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said Bolton, who is undersecretary for arms control and international security affairs, was coordinating with Central Asian governments on the U.S. campaign against terrorism. He said Bolton would also visit other countries but declined to name them or say how long his mission would last. The United States is seeking global cooperation as it tries to drive Osama bin Laden, prime suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington, out of hiding in Afghanistan. Uzbekistan is one of Afghanistan's northern neighbors, along with Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. Its main airport in Tashkent is the largest in former Soviet Central Asia and it has a number of other air bases near the Afghan border. Russian President Vladimir Putin said on Monday he would allow U.S. aircraft on humanitarian missions to fly over Russia, and would not oppose Central Asian states offering the same facility and even the use of their air bases. Earlier on Friday, a Kazakh official told Reuters a U.S. C-37 military aircraft carrying a government delegation had flown over Russia and Kazakhstan on Wednesday on its way to Uzbekistan. But the Uzbek Foreign Ministry would not comment, and the U.S. Embassy at the time denied there was a delegation in Tashkent at all.