US officials weigh in on Andijan events

From the Jerusalem Post:

US concerned terrorists freed in Uzbek jail break May. 13, 2005 22:40

The US State Department expressed concern on Friday that members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan were freed during the storming of a prison in the eastern part of the country.

Spokesman Richard Boucher noted that the IMU is officially designated as a foreign terrorist organization.

He said the United States is looking to all parties involved in the deadly confrontation in Andijan to exercise restraint.

The United States regrets the violence, Boucher said, noting that it has been "consistently critical" of the human rights situation in Uzbekistan.

At the White House, spoksman Scott McClellan said: "The people of Uzbekistan want to see a more representative and democratic government. But that should come through peaceful means not through violence, and that's what our message is."

By the way, I originally found this story at The Review of Central Asia, which seems to be a fairly effective news aggregator, although all of the content is in Russian. They sourced the story to Novoe Russkoe Slovo, a Russian-language paper published in the US, and for a minute (until I found the story in English) I was worried I would have to translate words spoken in English back into English with no guarantee of accuracy.

RFE/RL has an article that puts these official US statements in a broader context. The full RFE/RL coverage of the unrest in Andijan is available here.