The UN refugee agency expressed its regret on Monday over a decision by the Uzbek government to give UNHCR one month to end its more than decade-long presence in the Central Asian country.

UNHCR was informed of the decision by a Uzbek Foreign Ministry communique on March 17, which requested the agency to close its office in Tashkent within one month, said UNHCR's Assistant High Commissioner for Protection Erika Feller in a press release.

Feller said UNHCR would abide by the Uzbek government's order and would seek to make alternative arrangements to meet ongoing needs of the some 2,000 mainly Afghan refugees and asylum seekers in Uzbekistan.

"We are fully satisfied that our work in Uzbekistan has been performed in accordance with the mandate given to us by the UN General Assembly to protect and find solutions for refugees," he said.

"The basic principles of refugee protection will continue to guide all of our activities on behalf of refugees wherever we operate, even when this might have negative consequences on our relations with a state," he added.

Following the Andijan incident in Uzbekistan in May 2005, UNHCR carried out a humanitarian evacuation to Romania of 439 Uzbek refugees who had fled to neighboring Kyrgyzstan.

The Uzbek government accused the UN agency of protecting criminals and terrorists by opposing deportations of Uzbek asylum seekers from Kyrgyzstan, media reports said.

The UN refugee agency opened its office in Uzbekistan in 1993 to support its operations during the 1992-93 civil war in Tajikistan and in northern Afghanistan.

Its work in Uzbekistan currently focuses on the voluntary repatriation and resettlement of some 2,000 refugees mainly from Afghanistan.

Source: Xinhua