UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has pressed Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan on human rights issues during his first tour of Central Asia, a region troubled by poverty, human rights violations and water shortages.
During his meetings with Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev and Foreign Minister Kadyrbek Sarbayev at the weekend, Ban stressed that he was "troubled" by steps taken by the authorities to censor the media.
Speaking in Turkmenistan Friday, Ban said he had won concessions from Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhammedov to invite a United Nations human rights special rapporteur focusing on education.
Addressing university students in the Uzbek capital Tashkent, he urged the government to fulfill its international human rights commitments and to take further steps toward improving the repressive country's political climate.
He reminded Uzbekistan that "it is time to deliver, time to put" the international agreements on torture and on civil and political rights "fully into practice."
Ban called on Central Asian states to work together to tackle the disastrous effects of the shrinking Aral Sea. He offered U.N. expertise and assistance in coping with the Aral Sea catastrophe, which he termed as one of the world's worst environmental disasters.
The six-day trip through former Soviet Central Asia also takes the UN chief to Tajikistan and Kazakhstan.
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