LYCOS RETRIEVER 
Uzbekistan: Western Uzbekistan
built 657 days ago
Uzbekistan inherited on Soviet-era CW facility, the Chemical Research Institute, located near the city of Nukus in western Uzbekistan. It had a one-cubic-meter reactor vessel with a one-ton production capacity per day. The facility was equipped with high-containment laboratories, and aerosol test chamber, and a wind tunnel used to model the dispersion of chemical agents. The facility ... had an open-air test site. Operated by the Red Army, the test site was used to field-test various chemical agents. The binary agent Novichok might also have been tested on the site.Under a May 1999 implementing agreement signed by Uzbekistan and theUnited States,the CTR program provided $8.5 million for the dismantlement of the Chemical Research Institute.
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To the west of the mountains, Uzbekistan is generally low in elevation. More than two-thirds of Uzbekistan’s territory is covered by desert and steppe (semiarid grassy plains). One of the largest deserts in the world, the Qyzylqum, lies in north central Uzbekistan, and extends into Kazakhstan. In northeastern Uzbekistan, southwest of Toshkent, lies the Mirzachol desert. Across west central Uzbekistan is a vast area of flat plains called the Turan Plain, while additional plains lie south and east of the Qyzylqum. The extreme western portion of the country is occupied by the Ustyurt plateau, an elevated plain with some small mountain ridges and abrupt edges.
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The population of Uzbekistan is very young: 34.1% of its are people are younger than 14. According to official sources, Uzbeks comprise a majority (80%) of the total population. Other ethnic groups include Russians 5.5%, Tajiks 5%, Kazakhs 3%, Karakalpaks 2.5%, and Tatars 1.5%.[32] There is some controversy about the percentage of the Tajik population. While official numbers from Uzbekistan put the number at 5%, some Western scholars believe it to be much higher, going as high as 40%.[33]. There is ... an ethnic Korean population that was forcibly relocated to Uzbekistan by Stalin in the 1930s. There are also small groups of Armenians in Uzbekistan, mostly in Tashkent and Samarkand.
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As the most prominent nation in Central Asia in economic size, population and military strength, Uzbekistan is of significant strategic interest to the United States. A member of NATO’s Partnership for Peace, Uzbekistan has a good record of cooperation with Western states on security issues and less success on issues of human rights.
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Supporters of terrorist groups such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Al-Qaida, the Islamic Jihad Union, and the Eastern Turkistan Islamic Movement are still active in the overall region. Subsequently, the U.S. Department of State and other western governments urge their citizens that travel into Uzbekistan to exercise extreme caution, including avoiding large crowds, celebrations, and popular tourism spots, as in the past, kidnappings, assassinations and suicide bombings have occurred.
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Western Uzbekistan