Uzbek Ambassador to Ankara Ulfat Kadyrov and Commercial Attache Nadyr Khashimov participated in Abroad, program of privately owned Channel-A of the Turkish television on 30 August .

Kadyrov and Khashimov spoke of Uzbekistan and its accomplishments in the years of sovereignty. The audience was treated to a story of the important strategic location of Uzbekistan (pop. 27 million), its mineral wealth, and membership in the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Speaking of the state of affairs with human rights and freedom to worship, Kadyrov praised the people of Uzbekistan as extremely tolerant and added that representatives of all religions and confessions were absolutely free to worship at mosques, churches, or synagogues. Kadyrov said that the Uzbek authorities had deep respect for human rights and particularly right to life and added that capital punishment in Uzbekistan was about to be abolished (on January 1, 2008).

Khashimov in his turn made an emphasis on guarantees to foreign investors. The attache invited Turkish businesses to invest in Uzbek textile and food industry and production of home appliances. There are over 470 joint ventures with Turkish capitals in Uzbekistan nowadays, and 112 of them are businesses with entirely foreign capitals. Trade turnover between Uzbekistan and Turkey amounts to $600 million per annum. Khashimov urged Turkish businesses to stop being afraid of expansion into Uzbekistan. He even promised that if economic legislation were to be amended, foreign investors already operating in Uzbekistan at the moment of amendment could count on a decade of operations under the old law. "Nobody is going to bother foreign investors as long as they abide by the law," the attache said.

Speaking of democratization, Khashimov pronounced Uzbekistan in a transition period and installing democracy step by step. He said there were five political parties in Uzbekistan, all of them represented in the parliament. Presidential election this December will become another step in the process of democratization. (Khashimov was the first Uzbek official to bring up the matter of the forthcoming presidential election in public.)

The host who had once visited Uzbekistan and liked Uzbek hospitality asked his guests a question about the events in Andijan in 2005 and made a reference to the so called color revolutions in Ukraine, Georgia, and Kyrgyzstan. Kadyrov announced that some external forces had attempted to bring revolution to Uzbekistan and made use of certain social problems plaguing the country. The diplomat accused foreign media of what he called overweighted coverage of the 2005 tragedy and even rebuked Turkey for voting against Uzbekistan (when the UN was adopting a resolution on the event in Andijan) while 118 countries backed the government of Uzbekistan. Not even this support, however, spared Uzbekistan EU sanctions.

"We understand Turkey’s wish to become a member of the European Union. Turkic-speaking countries will be happy to see Turkey there because it will promote their interests in the European Union. We cannot demand voting in our support because it will constitute interference in domestic affairs of a sovereign state. Still, we counted on Turkish support of Uzbekistan in the UN," Kadyrov said.

The host wanted to know why Uzbekistan had missed the kurultai of the heads of Turkic-speaking states in Antalia in summer 2006. The guests replied that Uzbekistan had intended to participate in the kurultai and even drafted some documents for it (one of them stipulated mutual assistance among Turkic-speaking countries in international matters) but everything changed two days before the kurultai when Ankara’s stand at the OSCE on the events in Andijan became known. Uzbekistan chose to not to attend the kurultai. Both guests pointed out that sisterly nations were supposed to help each other in international organizations.

The host presented "We’Ve Never Been And Will Never Be Worse Than Any Other Nation", a book by President Islam Karimov, in the course of the program. Uzbek diplomat proudly displayed an illustrated book on Uzbekistan and advised the audience that both books could be bought at the Embassy of Uzbekistan.

It was announced more than once in the course of the program that problems in the Turkish-Uzbek relations would be discussed along with the cause of the diffident relations between the two countries but somehow the matter was never raised.