Muhammad Salih, leader of the Erk and dissenter, is on a visit to the United States. Salih's last visit to the United States took place exactly a year ago when he made speeches at several analytical centers and met with chairman of the Commission for Central Asia of the House of Representatives and some other legislators. Salih also addressed the Helsinki Commission of the US Congress on the subject of the Andijan tragedy (May 13, 2005).

According to Salih himself, the current visit is a continuation of the dialogue with US official and unofficial circles on the post-Andijan political situation in Uzbekistan.

Salih talked of the role of the opposition in the democratic processes in Uzbekistan at the National Democratic Institute and International Republican Institute on July 20 and 21.

An open seminar "Politics in Uzbekistan" took place on the premises of the Carnegie Foundation on July 24.

Professor Martha B. Alcott, a specialist in the East, became the seminar moderator. Salih was quoted as saying that "EU's symbolic actions and calls for sanctions from some US senators sufficed to upset and dismay President Islam Karimov."

According to Salih, attacks of the isolation syndrome were so serious that Karimov threw the protocol out the nearest window, summoned leaders of the revolt in Andijan from jail, and begged them to help him improve the image of the beloved Motherland damaged by the conniving United States and local traitors.

"Akromian leaders from behind the bars began urging refugees from Andijan granted political asylum abroad to come back. Were it not for the true reasons and motives of what followed, one could actually welcome and praise the return of the first 12 refugees to Uzbekistan and the way the authorities "took care of them". In the meantime, the authorities' motive was simple. Karimov was out to justify the crimes he himself had committed in Andijan with the atonement of participants and organizers of these events. It does not really take a genius to imagine the pressure, threats, and torture Uzbek law enforcement agencies applied to break Akrom Yuldashev's spirit and compel him to collaborate with the regime," Salih said by way of comments on the return of refugees from the United States to Uzbekistan.

"Karimov is repairing his image in the eyes of the international community. He knows now that his former policy of relations with the West, the policy based on the promises of political reforms and freedoms it had never even occurred to him to keep, was a reliable shield once. The shield that enabled him to preserve the repressive regime," Salih said.

Salih reminded the audience, however, that the Western community had not applied to Uzbekistan even a tenth of the sanctions applied to Belarus under Alexander Lukashenko. As far as Salih was concerned, Lukashenko's regime was anything but democratic. Lukashenko was an authoritarian ruler when compared to Vaclav Havel but nothing short of a democrat compared to Karimov. Had the West applied to Uzbekistan the measures similar to what was used against Belarus, the state of affairs in this Central Asian country would have been different now.

"Not everything is lost yet. We expect from the United States and European Union a pressure on Uzbekistan adequate to their weight in international affairs. It will take unrelenting international pressure on Karimov, nothing less than that," Salih said.

Salih is scheduled to speak at the briefing of the Helsinki Commission of the US Congress on July 25. The meeting advertised as "Uzbekistan: Are Changes Possible?" is to be attended by Sam Brownback of the US Senate, Christopher H. Smith of the US Congress, Abdurahim Pulat (chairman of Birlik, another oppositionist party denied official registration in Uzbekistan), and Guljam Umarov (the son of Sanjar Umarov, imprisoned businessman and leader of the Sunny Coalition of Uzbekistan).