TASHKENT (Reuters) – Uzbekistan’s foreign ministry has summoned the Russian ambassador over a call by a Russian politician to annex the former Soviet republic, it said late on Thursday.
Russian nationalist writer Zakhar Prilepin, who is co-chair of the “A Just Russia – For Truth” party, said this week he believed Russia should annex Uzbekistan and other countries whose citizens travel en masse to Russia for work.
The Uzbek foreign ministry told Russian Ambassador Oleg Malginov on Thursday that Tashkent was “deeply concerned” about these “provocative” comments.
Malginov, in turn, said Prilepin’s comments had nothing to do with the official Kremlin position, the ministry said.
Millions of migrant labourers from formerly Soviet republics in Central Asia work in Russia and their presence sometimes leads to economic and ethnic tensions.
Russia’s annexation of Crimea and later other areas of Ukraine has caused unease among other ex-Soviet republics.
(Reporting by Mukhammadsharif Mamatkulov; Writing by Olzhas Auyezov; Editing by Mark Heinrich)
