Before the meeting, John Kerry said: “It’s my great pleasure today to welcome His Excellency, the Foreign Minister Kamilov from Uzbekistan. We’re going to have a chance to talk about the important security and assistance relationship that we have”.

“Uzbekistan is providing very, very important help with respect to the distribution network of aid to Afghanistan, and they are involved, happily, in some very important infrastructure construction projects, a railroad into Afghanistan and major electricity power provision. And we also have other issues – human rights – other issues to talk about. But we’re delighted to welcome His Excellency here, and we thank you for the important cooperation,” he said.

In his turn, Abdulaziz Kamilov said: “First of all, on behalf of the delegation of Uzbekistan, I’d like to thank you for a warm welcome. Today, during our negotiations, we are going to exchange views on the state of our bilateral relations and our cooperation in political, economic, and humanitarian areas”.

Uzbek official said: “Of course, we are going also to raise the problem of Afghanistan. We have very close cooperation with the United States, and we will continue this kind of cooperation to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan and to the region of Central Asia.”