Uzbekistan’s cabinet of ministers says that the country’s 78-year-old leader Islam Karimov has been “hospitalized,” in a statement published by the country’s state news agency.
The statement, widely reported by local and Russian media, does not offer any details about strongman Karimov’s condition.
Uzbek leader Islam Karimov chairs the meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization in Tashkent, 24 June 2016. (CC BY 4.0 Kremlin.ru/Wikipedia)
“According to experts, a full medical examination and follow-up treatment will take a certain time,” the statement adds.
Authoritarian leader Karimov has long been the subject of rumors of ill health that are difficult to verify, since information in the Central Asian country is very tightly controlled. He has held power in Uzbekistan since before Uzbekistan’s independence from Moscow in 1991.
Karimov has no obvious successor and the country has never held an election judged free and fair by international monitors.
Uzbekistan is a landlocked former Soviet state with over 30 million people bordering Afghanistan.
— AFP
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