BRUSSELS, June 9 (RIA Novosti) - Sergei Ivanov, Russia's Defense Minister, confirmed information about fifty nonresidents among persons killed or detained during last month's riots in Andizhan, Uzbekistan.
"There were fifty nationals of other countries among those killed or seized in Andizhan," the minister said to the media in Brussels, which he is visiting for a Russia-NATO Council session.
Similar figures previously reached RIA Novosti from a high-ranking officer of the Russian Defense Ministry.
"179 died or were captured during riots in Uzbekistan. Fifty of them were citizens of other Asian countries, CIS countries among them," our informant said.
Our interviewee spoke very harshly against international investigation of the public unrest in Uzbekistan. "An international investigation would aim not to see whence the terrorists came but to pile accusations on the Karimov regime and so build up pressure on it. Possibly, the regime may even be overthrown under the long-known banner of democratic change.
"The results of all that will tell on us Russians-not on the West. We certainly have to give thought to tentative consequences," he stressed to RIA Novosti.
One of the journalists on today's audience wondered whether Russian statistics of nonresident Andizhan victims might be faked. The Defense Minister said a flat "no". "A passport is enough to identify one. There's no room for manipulation here."
