This article is more than 4 years old

This article is more than 4 years old

The Turkish prime minister has said Islam Karimov has died, hours after the Uzbekistan government conceded for the first time the president was critically ill.

Rumours of Uzbek president's death raise questions over succession Read more

Binali Yıldırım told the Turkish cabinet in televised remarks that Karimov, the authoritarian ruler of the former Soviet republic, had “passed away” and said the country was “sharing the pain and sorrow of Uzbek people”.

Karimov’s daughter Lola said earlier this week the 78-year old had suffered a brain haemorrhage but the government had remained silent, making its first announcement on Friday following days of unofficial reports that Karimov was critically ill or even dead.



“Dear compatriots, it is with a heavy heart that we inform you that the health of our President has sharply deteriorated in the past 24 hours to reach a critical state, according to the doctors,” the statement said.

The Reuters news agency said on Friday that three diplomatic sources had told it Karimov was dead and a further government announcement would come on Friday that would also name the head of the commission in charge of organising the funeral.

Uzbekistan on Thursday celebrated its independence day and it has been widely assumed that if the government was to make an announcement on his condition it would not break the news until after the festivities.



Respected Central Asian news website Fergana.ru on Friday posted pictures from Karimov’s hometown of Samarkand, showing what appeared to be undertakers working on a cemetery plot in the city’s historic graveyard where Karimov’s family is buried.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Workers clean an area of the central cemetery in Samarkand in a photograph posted by the respected news website Fergana.ru. Photograph: AP

Uzbekistan under Karimov has been an authoritarian regime with the ruler suppressing opposition in the Central Asian country since taking power in 1989 and cultivating no apparent successor.

Karimov’s elder daughter Gulnara, a flamboyant figure formerly seen as a potential heir, has dropped out of the running after she was placed under house arrest in 2014.

The socialite business magnate fell from grace after a bitter family feud burst into the open as she accused her mother and younger sister of sorcery and compared her father to Stalin.

“It’s like the dark days of Kremlinology. We’ll have to see who is standing where and who says what at the funeral,” said Deidre Tynan, Central Asia project director at the International Crisis Group, based in Bishkek in neighbouring Kyrgyzstan.

“If it goes to plan it will be as smooth as it was with Berdymukhadmmedov,” said Tynan, referring to the president of neighbouring Turkmenistan.

Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov, a former dentist and minister of health, took over from the long-standing dictator Saparmurat Niyazov after the latter’s death in 2006, and went about establishing a personality cult every bit as overblown as his that of predecessor. However, few people have insight into the real tensions in the opaque nation’s inner circle.



“Just because we can’t see it doesn’t mean that there hasn’t been a lot of tension and horse trading behind closed doors,” said Tynan.

Born on 30 January 1938, Karimov was raised in an orphanage in Samarkand, rising up the Communist party ranks to become head of Soviet Uzbekistan and continued as leader after the collapse of the USSR two years later in 1991.

His regime has repeatedly been accused of heinous rights abuses including torturing opponents and using forced mass labour in the lucrative cotton industry.

As well as the internal situation, regional analysts say it is worth watching the situation on the border between Kyrygzstan and Uzbekistan. Many ethnic Uzbeks live in southern Kyrgyzstan, where ethnic violence in 2010 led to over 400 deaths.

The situation on the border remains tense, and in the past fortnight a stand-off has developed over a disputed section of the border, with four Kyrgyz national detained and currently held in Uzbek jails. Kyrgyz officials fear any new Uzbek president might see the ethnic card as a good way to rally the nation.