TO REMEMBER ETERNALLY THE COURAGE, HEROISM AND TENACITY

President of the Republic of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov visited Moscow on May 8, 2015, at the invitation of President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin and took part in the Commonwealth of Independent States meeting of heads of state as part of the events occasioned to the seventieth anniversary of Victory over fascism in the Second World War.

In his speech, Uzbekistan’s leader said that we will always remember the inimitable courage, heroism and resolve of all those who defended the peace and freedom on Earth in the battlefields at the price of their lives.

Islam Karimov stressed in particular that Uzbekistan made its input into the Victory over fascism in World War II. Out of the 6.5 million people living then in our republic 1.5 million went to the combat zone. If we take into account that around 500 thousand of our fellow countrymen, another thousands disappeared without trace, myriads returned maimed, it would be easy to imagine what price the Uzbek people had had to pay in that war.

Today, with infinite gratefulness do we recall the selflessness and nobility of the people of Uzbekistan who, notwithstanding all the predicaments and thorny days of the war years, shared their dwelling places and the last slice of bread with those 1 million people evacuated from occupied territories, including about two hundred thousand orphans, children and teenagers.

In order to perpetuate the memory of the fallen and those compatriots who did not return from the war, their names were inscribed with golden letters in the Books of Memory set up across the entire Uzbekistan.

The year 2015 was announced as the one of Attention and Care for the Senior Generation in our country, and a national program was approved that envisages implementation of solid practical measures to bolster the targeted social protection of and support for the elderly people, first and foremost the veterans of war and labor battlefields who made a worthwhile contribution to the Victory over Nazism.

As Islam Karimov underscored, jubilee festivities dedicated to the seventieth anniversary of Victory are held currently throughout Uzbekistan with the participation of wider public of the country.

What is crucial today is to extract essential lessons from that war, that bloodbath, Uzbekistan’s leader put it. Irrespective of the fact who and what was the cause to unleash war, it is clear for the entire sensible humanity that to repeat such a war or start a new one would for sure mean that it will become the next and apparently the last world war.

During the Moscow summit meeting of the CIS heads of state, the sides discussed issues related to the current agenda of the Commonwealth, the schedule of upcoming events at the highest level, and exchanged views on a wide range of pressing regional and international affairs.

IA "Jahon"