US PDAS Alice Wells to visit Bishkek and Tashkent

On Feb 25-28, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, Ambassador Alice Wells is travelling to Bishkek and Tashkent, the press service of the US Embassy in Tashkent reported.
 
In Bishkek, Alice Wells will meet with senior government officials and visit the American University of Central Asia and meet students and faculty members. She will also participate in a joint public event with Kyrgyzstan’s Finance Minister Baktygul Jeenbaeva to mark the successful cooperative efforts of the US-Kyrgyz governments on returning $4.6 million of assets stolen by the family of former President Kurmanbek Bakiev to the Kyrgyz people.
 
Alice Wells will then travel to Tashkent where she will lead the US government interagency delegation to conduct US-Uzbekistan Annual Bilateral Consultations with Uzbek Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov.

She will meet senior Uzbek government officials to discuss US-Uzbek cooperation on global and regional security issues; the peace process in Afghanistan; economic and trade agreements; human rights issues, including religious freedom and joint US-Uzbek programs on judicial reform, public education, and women’s rights. 

This will be the first Annual Bilateral Consultations conducted following President Mirziyoyev’s historic visit to Washington in May 2018, which ushered in a new era of strategic partnership between the United States and Uzbekistan.
 
The United States looks forward to strengthening partnership with Uzbekistan to support the implementation of President Mirziyoyev’s reform agenda and advancing the strong bilateral ties with the Republic.