Yesterday in Washington, Uzbekistan Foreign Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov met with U.S. National Security Advisor John Bolton.

It is reported that the sides regarded a broad variety of problems of mutual concern and methods of expanding partnership relations. Advisor John Bolton highlighted the significant role Uzbekistan plays in initiating the inter-Afghan peace dialogue, socio-economic rehabilitation of Afghanistan, and its connections to Central Asia.

As previously stated, Minister Abdulaziz Kamilov is presently visiting the United States as the head of a big delegation to engage in Washington's second Ministerial for Advancement of Religious Freedoms and other activities directed at improving bilateral trade, economic, monetary and investment connections.

In early April of this year, the ILO recognized the fact that Uzbekistan had eradicated “systematic forced labor”.

The US State Department presented the annual Trafficking in Persons Report, which analyzed data for 189 countries for 2018.

The document states that Uzbekistan took important steps during the annual cotton harvest to eliminate forced labor of adolescents. According to the American department, international observers have no obstacles to work in Uzbekistan, independent human rights activists take part in the monitoring.

Also, this year the US Department of Labor finally excluded Uzbek cotton from the list of goods produced using forced child labor. Uzbekistan is missing in the updated list published on March 25, 2019. This means that US state-owned companies will now be able to purchase Uzbek cotton without special certification (proving that the goods were produced without the use of forced labor and child labor).

By Mr. Sherzod Karimov