By Gram Slattery
SAMARKAND, Uzbekistan, Oct 19 (Reuters) - Secretary of State Marco Rubio met with counterparts from five Central Asian nations in Uzbekistan on Monday, a trip that has resulted in few public deliverables, but which US officials have presented as a key opportunity to expand American soft power.
Rubio, who arrived in the historic Silk Road city of Samarkand on Sunday night, met in the morning with the foreign ministers of Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan.
In the evening, he will dine with Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev and participate in a US-Uzbekistan business council event.
The Trump administration has portrayed resource-rich Central Asia — wedged between Russia, Iran and China — as a major geopolitical battleground that deserves more attention than it has received under previous administrations. US officials have placed a particular emphasis on trying to secure greater access to the area's rare earth mineral supplies. Rubio came to Samarkand with more than 200 US business leaders in tow, the State Department said.
"I mean, look, it's competition," Rubio told journalists on Monday morning after strolling through Registan Square, a complex of three imposing, azure-tiled madrassas that date to the Timurid Empire. "We have products, we have companies, they make things, and we just want fair competition and an opportunity."
Upon arriving at Registan Square, Rubio's Uzbek hosts released hundreds of pigeons into the sky and filled the vast space with local pop music. Upon landing in Samarkand on Sunday night, Rubio was warmly embraced by Uzbekistan's foreign minister, Bakhtiyor Saidov, while two women clad in elaborate gold-and-black traditional dresses known as chopons presented him with a bouquet.
VISIT COINCIDES WITH CRISIS IN UKRAINE
Rubio's trip comes at a fraught time in international affairs, and the secretary has faced questions from reporters about whether traveling to Uzbekistan is the best current use of his time.
US-Ukraine relations are at a low point after Washington urged Kyiv earlier in the month to stop striking Russian refineries and agreed to buy Russian diesel in a bid to lower domestic fuel prices ahead of the US midterm elections. The war with Iran shows little sign of resolution, and US ally Saudi Arabia has entered a disruptive war with Yemen's Houthis.
Asked upon departure from Washington on Saturday why he was going to Uzbekistan now, Rubio said foreign trips were too often designed to resolve immediate issues, rather than build long-term relationships.
"You're always visiting someplace where there's a crisis or there's a problem or ... you're going because there's a conference," he said.
There are indications some of the Central Asian nations present, all of which are post-Soviet states, are deepening diplomatic and economic links with Washington. For instance, Kazakhstan in November agreed to join the Abraham Accords, a series of US-led agreements under which Muslim-majority countries have agreed to normalize or deepen ties with Israel. On Monday, Uzbekistan signed the Artemis Accords, a US-led multilateral agreement that sets non-binding principles and legal guidelines for peaceful space exploration and resource management.
But all five nations also maintain significant commercial and diplomatic links with Russia and, to varying extents, China and Iran, a fact that Rubio acknowledged.
"Countries want to have as many relationships as possible," Rubio told reporters while speaking alongside Saida Mirziyoyeva, the daughter of Uzbekistan's president and the head of the presidential office.
"Uzbekistan's been clear: they want to be friends to everybody."
(Reporting by Gram Slattery; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama )
