SECRETARY BLINKEN: Well, good afternoon, everyone. Good to see you all. So this is my first visit to Uzbekistan, and let me express first of all my gratitude to the president, to the acting foreign minister, and to all the people I've had an opportunity to meet with over the course of this day for what's been an extraordinarily warm welcome.
The partnership between our countries dates back to Uzbekistan's independence. It's grown much closer in recent years. Across all of my engagements here, what I come away with is a mutual and enthusiastic commitment to strengthening that partnership even further.
That starts with deepening our ties with Uzbekistan's young people. Over the past five years, the United States has invested $25 million in English-language education, teaming up with the government to train 15,000 Uzbekistani English teachers, providing English-language textbooks to some 10,000 schools. And I had an opportunity to witness some of the work that we're doing today sitting in on a class with some really extraordinary young people who are only three or four months into English-language education and already sounded incredibly fluent.
This is about more than just learning a language. It's about empowering rising generations of Uzbeks to use their new skills to compete for jobs in markets that demand English proficiency, enabling connections with English speakers across the region and the world, opening doors to exchange programs in the United States, which can create new opportunities for people in both of our countries.
Another way that we're expanding opportunity is by supporting the full implementation of President Mirziyoyev's reform agenda. The progress that Uzbekistan has made on labor rights shows just how transformative that agenda can be. For 11 years, more than 300 companies banned Uzbek cotton from their products due to the use of child and forced labor. In partnership with national and international labor groups and human rights organizations, the government worked to eradicate this pervasive practice, not only passing a new labor code, but ensuring that it was enforced. Last year, the International Labor Organization determined that Uzbekistan's cotton sector was free of child and forced labor. This is a historic achievement and it's a model for countries around the world facing similar challenges.
It's already making a tangible difference in the lives of Uzbek workers, farmers, businesses. Wages are up. Private investment is increasing. People of all ages, including children, are no longer being forced to pick cotton in abusive conditions. We look forward to working with the government to promote similar efforts in other sectors, as well as to fully implement the president's reform agenda. That includes delivering on commitments to defend religious freedom and press freedom and strengthen protections for vulnerable populations - issues that I discussed today with the president.
I also underscored the importance of Uzbekistan fully and transparently investigating allegations of human rights violations committed by law enforcement officers during the July 2020 - 2022 unrest and holding accountable those responsible.
In addition to strengthening the U.S.-Uzbekistan relationship, we're also working together to deepen regional integration. Foreign Minister Saidov and I just came, as you know, from the C5+1 meeting in Astana, where I announced a new commitment to work with Congress to provide an additional $25 million to catalyze economic growth in Central Asia. That brings our total investment in the region since our meeting on the margins of the UN General Assembly last September to more than $66 million. We're focused on diversifying trade routes, fostering greater private investment, providing job training.
And let me emphasize that so much of the work that we're doing in these - in these programs and with the investments we're making from our government really serve as a catalyst for increasing private sector investment. I think the opportunities that the private sector is already engaged in are significant and everything I'm seeing suggests that there is growing enthusiasm, interest, focus on investing here and investing in other countries in Central Asia.
It's also how we provide the support that matters. The United States is making these and other investments in Central Asia openly, transparently, in a way that empowers people across the region to shape their own future, and that meets high labor, human rights, environmental standards. That's how investment should work.
We'll have a chance to build on these efforts next month in Samarkand when the United States sends a high-level delegation from across our government to a meeting of the U.S.-Central Asia Trade and Investment Framework.
So the bottom line is this. A more connected, a more cooperative Central Asia will be better able to determine its own future and deliver for its people's needs. The United States is committed to supporting that vision. One of the things that we've learned over many, many years is that the investments that we make in these partnerships benefit our partners, but they also benefit us, creating potentially new markets for our own products, our own investments, creating new opportunities to partner with countries in meeting global challenges where Central Asia can make a real difference, and just developing new friendships that benefit our country across so many different aspects of our society in many different ways.
And that's fundamentally why I've come here, and I want to emphasize that this is not just a matter of one visit; it's the work that we're doing day in, day out, including through our embassies, through our engagement with the private sector, through engagements with civil society and other groups. And we're in it for the long haul.
In our meetings today, I also had a chance to thank the government for its generous aid to the people of Afghanistan, from electricity to emergency humanitarian assistance, especially to women and girls. And we applaud Uzbekistan for repatriating more than 400 family members of terrorist foreign fighters from Syria and Iraq whose reintegration the United States will continue to support.
Finally, this visit to the region comes against the backdrop of the one-year anniversary of Putin's aggression against Ukraine. This continues to be a cause for hardship for people around the world, including here in Central Asia. The second- and third-order consequences of this aggression continue to be felt. Indeed, few regions have been more acutely affected than Central Asia, including Uzbekistan, where people continue to shoulder increased food and energy prices. As always, this is hitting the most vulnerable the hardest. That's why the United States has provided more than $16 million in emergency food aid to this region since President Putin launched his aggression against Ukraine.
This hardship makes Uzbekistan's generosity even more remarkable. The government, the people of Uzbekistan have stepped up to provide food and medical assistance to Ukraine. They continue to host tens of thousands of Russian citizens who fled their country after President Putin launched his war.
Russia's invasion has also fostered deep concern across the region. After all, if a powerful country is willing to try to erase the borders of a sovereign neighbor by force, what's to stop it from doing the same to others? Countries across Central Asia understand this. So does the United States, and so do partners and allies around the world. And that's exactly why we've been committed and remain committed to standing for the sovereignty, the territorial integrity, the independence not only of Ukraine, but for countries across Central Asia and, indeed, around the world.
Thank you.
