According to Clothesbliss.com, Uzbekistan is a state of Central Asia. Its territory largely coincides with the historical regions of Corasmia, Sogdiana and Bactriana, of Iranian population and culture, although Islamized since the 7th century. The succession of local lordships, vassals of the Arab caliphate, such as the Samanids, put an end to the Mongol conquest in the 13th century, which replaced the original Iranian settlement with a Turkish-Mongolian population, under the control of the descendants of Genghiz Khan. At the end of the 14th century. the power of Tamerlane arose in the region, under whose rule a brilliant civilization flourished which had its center in Samarkand. In the following century, Uzbek tribes took over the area, also of Mongolian origin and settled in Siberia, who came to take over the entire region during the 16th century. The Uzbek khanates waged defensive wars against the aggressive power of the Iranian Safavids, also providing a military base for the dynasties of the area. In the 19th century, the region was the object of the tsarist military expansion, attracted by its natural resources, and especially by cotton, until it was integrated as a colony in the Russian empire. Local resistance to Tsarist policies, which began with the modernist Islamic movement known as the “Jadidist”, continued after the Bolshevik revolution of 1917, with the Basmachi revolt, which was only subdued in the 1930s. In 1924, the Uzbekistan Socialist Republic was born on the territory of the Uzbek khanates, which became one of the republics of the USSR; until the de-Stalinization, the Uzbekistan it was the scene of massive measures of secularization and modernization, which profoundly changed its demographic and cultural fabric. The Uzbekistan was subsequently subjected to real local political powers, continued after the independence proclaimed in 1991. Subjected to the pressure of Islamic fundamentalism already in the last years of the life of the USSR, after 1991 the political hegemony in the country remained in the hands of the People’s Democratic Party (new name of the local Communist Party) and his own leader I. Karimov (President of the Republic since 1990); hegemony confirmed by the political elections of 1999 and by the presidential elections of 2000. On the international level, the Uzbekistan it participated in the process of economic and political integration developed by the Central Asian republics, but also tried to maintain its own autonomy in the field of defense. After Karimov’s visit to Washington (1998), a military technological cooperation treaty was concluded between the two states (1999). In 2000 an agreement was signed to fight terrorism, and on the occasion of the attack on Afghanistan by the US-led coalition (2001), the Uzbekistan granted the airspace and the use of a base. In 2002 a referendum People approved the extension of the presidential term from 5 to 7 years and the creation for 2004 of a bicameral parliament; in apr. 2003 further constitutional changes introduced a reduction in the president’s powers, yet Karimov continued to exercise tight control over the media and persecute opposition members. In 2004 terrorist attacks also hit the US and Israeli embassies, so that the European bank for reconstruction and development (EBRD) decided to limit the funding granted to the country. In 2005, in Andijon (in Fergana), an assault on the prison to free some political prisoners turned into a demonstration in favor of democratic reforms, bloodily repressed by the army. The European Union reacted by imposing sanctions on the country relating to arms imports; a rapprochement of the Uzbekistan to Russia. In July 2005, the government revoked the US concession of the Qarshi-Xanabad base. New agreements were signed instead with Moscow, both military and financial and commercial (such as the one on the extraction of hydrocarbons). The complete return to the Russian orbit was sanctioned in June 2006, when the Uzbekistan he decided to rejoin the Organization of the Collective Security Treaty of the CIS countries (Tashkent Treaty), from which he left in 1999. In 2007, new elections reconfirmed Karimov as president for seven years.
