WHAT GOES AROUND COMES AROUND....
Uzbekistan arrests two Tajik spies
TASHKENT, Uzbekistan, July 21 (UPI) -- Uzbekistan's National Security
Service has arrested Furkat Tuygunov, a Tajik citizen, on espionage
charges.
The Regnum news agency reported Thursday that a high-ranking National
Security Service officer had said Tuygunov admitted during his
interrogation that he had been recruited by Tajik Ministry of Security
agents.
Tuygunov allegedly said that Ministry of Security agents trained him
for operations in Uzbekistan, including potential assassinations of
targeted Uzbeks.
According to the Uzbek report, Tuygunov allegedly said his instructions
were personally conveyed to him by Rustam Makhmudov, a high-ranking
counterintelligence Ministry of Security official.
Tuygunov is not the first alleged Tajik spy to be apprehended by Uzbek
counterintelligence services. On June 22, the Uzbek media reported that
an ethnic Tajik had been arrested in Uzbekistan's southern Surkhandarya
region.
During his interrogation, Murodullo Zhuraev allegedly said he had been
smuggled into Uzbekistan to assassinate some high-ranking officials and
had been entrusted with the mission by Anvar Taghoimurodov, a senior
Tajik Interior Ministry official. Taghoimurodov subsequently dismissed
the Uzbek report as "groundless and slanderous."
Relations between Tajikistan and Uzbekistan have been traditionally
tense since the collapse of the Soviet Union. In the last month,
Uzbekistan has arrested two Tajiks it claims were trained to spy and
assassinate leading Uzbek government officials
.
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