U.S. Government Provides Support for Uzbek Border Security

On November 20, Ambassador George Krol and Commander of U. S. Transportation Command General William Fraser III joined Uzbek government officials to formally inaugurate a rail scanner at the Friendship Bridge which links Uzbekistan to Afghanistan.   The inauguration of the scanner is one element of a two-year cooperative effort between the Uzbek and U.S. governments to improve Uzbekistan’s overall technical capacity to inspect and screen cargo passing through its border crossing with Afghanistan.   U.S. Central Command provided the scanner, and the U.S. State Department will provide scanner image analysis training to personnel of the State Customs Committee who will operate the device.  As part of the same initiative to strengthen overall border and transit infrastructure security, in 2014 Uzbekistan will install a second U.S.-funded rail scanner at Karakalpakiya customs post on the Uzbekistan-Kazakhstan border.