OSCE ready to send mission to monitor Uzbekistan's constitutional referendum - media

TASHKENT. July 5 (Interfax) - The Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) said it was ready to send a monitoring mission for the constitutional referendum in Uzbekistan, the Uzbek Foreign Ministry's Dune news agency reported on Tuesday.

"The OSCE leadership has expressed its willingness to send a delegation to Uzbekistan to monitor the referendum on constitutional reform," the report said.

The announcement came at meetings with the president of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA) Margareta Cederfelt, OSCE PA Secretary General Roberto Montella, OSCE PA Vice President and Special Representative on Central Asia Engagement Pia Kauma, and OSCE High Commissioner on National Minorities Lamberto Zannier. The Uzbek delegation was led by the Senate's first deputy speaker Sadyk Safayev. The meetings took place on the sidelines of the OSCE PA summer session in the British city of Birmingham.

The referendum was proposed by Uzbek President Shavkat Mirziyoyev in late June. A draft of constitutional changes was submitted for consideration by the legislature, approved on first reading and published for public debate. The parliament set its deadline for July 5, after which the bill would be put to a referendum. The bill contains more than 200 changes to 64 articles of the constitution.

The proposed amendments prompted riots on July 1-2 in the autonomous republic of Karakalpakstan, whose sovereignty they affected. Police arrested 516 people. Prosecutor Mamatov from the Prosecutor General's Office said 18 people had been killed during the unrest in Nukus, the capital of Karakalpakstan, in northwestern Uzbekistan.

On Monday the lower house of national parliament voted for a 10-day extension of the deadline for the bill's public debate until July 15.