"This idea [of creating a union of Central Asian nations] is unacceptable to Uzbekistan. I don’t plan to change my position," he said.

"To form such a union it is indispensable that the level of socioeconomic development be comparable," Karimov told a briefing after talks with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev in Astana on Tuesday.

"Unfortunately, we still have many issues and so it is premature to discuss any union, especially since we had something of the kind in the past," he said.

He recalled that the Central Asian Economic Forum was created in 1998. "Later, in 2002, the union was renamed and it ceased to exist in 2005, and then we created the EurAsEc [The Eurasian Economic Community]," Karimov said.

Every nation should decide on joining unions based on the wish of its people, he said.

Nazarbayev said that the idea of a union of Central Asian nations was in the future.

"Such cooperation exists in fact: we trade, people socialize and business develops. The free trade zone proposed by Uzbekistan is the first step toward an economic union in the future. Naturally, nobody thought that the Central Asian union would emerge in one day," Nazarbayev said.