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Rice takes high road in Tajikistan visit
(AP)
Updated: 2005-10-13 20:40
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Thursday the United States is taking
the high road in pressing for democracy among former Soviet states historically
unfamiliar with political liberty.
"Central Asia is a region that has not had a democratic past," Rice said
after a meeting with Tajikistan's authoritarian president, Emomali Rakhmonov,
who has maintained a tight grip on power and shown little tolerance for dissent.
He has jailed several former loyalists and opposition leaders in recent years in
what critics say is an attempt to secure his position.
"The important issue is to take these countries where they are and see them
make progress," Rice said.
Impoverished Tajikistan suffered five years of civil war between pro-Moscow
and Islamic forces, which ended in 1997 with a U.N.-brokered power-sharing
agreement. The country is a main channel for drugs transported from neighboring
Afghanistan to Russia and Europe.
Earlier Thursday, Rice met with Kazakhstan's strongman President Nursultan
Nazarbayev.
At a press conference afterward, she said the United
States presses a consistent message of democracy for all, whether the audience
is in the Middle East or Central Asia.
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