Mirziyoyev’s Early Outreach to Washington Marked a Clear Break With the Past

A chance meeting in 2016 in Bishkek set the tone for a new Uzbek leadership that welcomed U.S. assistance, pledged governance reforms and launched tools for direct citizen engagement.

When Uzbekistan’s newly installed president met a senior U.S. official on a hot summer day, he emphasized a pragmatic approach to security and education while signaling a break from his predecessor. He noted that, two years earlier, Tashkent had taken delivery of 328 surplus MRAP armored vehicles from the United States, and said he had personally tested their mobility. He also spoke warmly about increasing exchanges that would send more young Uzbeks to top American universities.

But the conversation did not stay on hardware. The president raised democracy and human rights without prompting, describing steps his administration was taking to reform courts, fight corruption and defend small business owners’ economic freedoms. He singled out the long-criticized practice of forced cotton picking, saying that over a recent four-year span the country had cut the use of child labor and lowered the incidence of coerced adult work, and he pledged continued collaboration with the International Labor Organization to finish the job.

Midway through the meeting he unveiled a new digital channel meant to let citizens contact leaders directly, reporting that roughly one hundred thousand people had already used the service to send messages. He framed the portal as a way to alter how officials and ordinary people interact — a practical experiment in opening channels that previously were tightly controlled.

The U.S. diplomat mostly listened, laying out Washington’s interest in finding common ground and expanding cooperation even where views diverged. The Uzbek leader described this outreach as the start of a closer bilateral partnership and made clear he intended to put his own stamp on the country’s direction. Observers in the room left with the impression that, while shaped by the Karimov years, the new president was setting a markedly different course.

A decade after that encounter, assessments of the reforms remain mixed. Some analysts in Tashkent welcome the initial momentum but caution that a lot of promises still need follow-through. Others argue that the early signals of change were real and that without the shift in 2016 the country would have been slower to move. I was there by accident on that hot day in Bishkek — and from that vantage point, it was obvious that Uzbekistan’s leaders had decided it was time to try something different.