A group of foreign diplomats and journalists arrived in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan today to assess the scope of a violent government crackdown on demonstrators.
Authorities have blamed the killings in the eastern town of Andizhan on Muslim rebels, but witnesses said some 500 people, including women and children, were gunned down by security forces who opened fire on protesters last Friday.
The group included diplomats from a number of European countries, including Britain, Romania and the Czech Republic, and China and South Korea.
Heavily armed special forces accompanied the busloads of visitors as they travelled around the deserted town, where the normally bustling tea houses and kebab shops were empty apart from the police and soldiers patrolling them.
A request to visit a school where most of the killings are alleged to have taken place was refused.
Residents and a local human rights activist say the rebellion was staged by locals protesting against poverty, corruption and Karimov's tough line on Muslims.
The British envoy to Uzbekistan, David Moran, said the short visit to Andizhan could not answer all their questions and the next step should be a greater openness from the authorities.
"I think we need to be realistic about how much can be achieved in a whistle-stop tour of ambassadors," Moran said.
The tightly-controlled tour was led by Interior Minister Zakirdzhon Almatov who repeated government insistence that it was rebels, not Uzbek troops, who were behind the bloodshed.
The government says 169 were killed, most of them "bandits" who themselves had killed civilians and security officials. An Uzbek opposition party said it had compiled a list of 745 dead.
The unrest was sparked by the trial of 23 businessmen charged with belonging to Akromiya, and blamed by President Islam Karimov on Islamic extremists. It was the bloodiest chapter in the troubled post-Soviet history of Uzbekistan, an ally in the US war on terror.
The diplomats were taken to the burnt-out regional administration building, held by rebels on Friday. Metal letters on top of the building spelling out a Karimov proclamation remained intact: "Uzbekistan is a country with a great future".
The killings have brought widespread international criticism of the Uzbek government, which allows the US military to use an airbase for sorties into neighbouring Afghanistan.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said yesterday Uzbekistan had the right to fight terrorism but said Washington had pushed President Islam Karimov's government to improve its rights record and urged it to be open about events in Andizhan.
Once the powerhouse of Central Asia, Uzbekistan 's history since the collapse of the Soviet Union has been one of economic decline and increasingly autocratic rule and thousands of religious and political opponents behind bars.