Presidency of Shavkat Mirziyoyev

Mirziyoyev worked hard to remove any controversial trace of the Karimov administration in his presidency. This also worked strategically, as some of Mirziyoyev's political adversaries such as Rustam Azimov and Rustam Inoyatov were opposed to many of his planned reforms. This period in his presidency was used to consolidate his power and remove all power struggles in the country.[4] He appointed Abdusalom Azizov to head the defense ministry in September 2017, to succeed the long-time defense minister Qobul Berdiyev, who was seen as a Karimov loyalist. Azizov himself would be sacked from this position in February 2019, being transferred to the State Security Service to lead it after its head, Lieutenant General Ikhtiyor Abdullayev, was accused of tapping President Mirziyoyev's phone.[5]

There are many visible results of Mirziyoyev's reforms, which included the creation of more than 300,000 jobs and an increase in exports. Mirziyoyev secured 10 billion dollars in areas such as infrastructure, alternative energy and agriculture following talks with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed in March 2019.[6][7] In October 2020, he approved a list of state-owned properties and enterprises that are to be sold to the Uzbek private sector as a means of speeding up the privatization process in Uzbekistan.[8]

Over the course of his presidency, he expanded educational opportunities in the Armed Forces of Uzbekistan establishing/reforming the following institutions: the Academy of the Armed Forces of Uzbekistan, the Military Institute of Information and Communication Technologies and Communications, the Military Medical Academy,[9] and the Higher Military Aviation School. Since he came to power, the armed forces had been involved in rapidly re-arming its military with more modern equipment.[10] In November 2017, at the initiative of President Mirziyoyev, the State Committee for Defense Industry was created serving as an authorized body for the management of the military–industrial complex.[11]

Mirziyoyev was responsible for handling of the COVID-19 pandemic in Uzbekistan in 2020. He has been noted for being responsible for trying to coordinate efforts within Central Asia to combat the crisis.[12][13] He launched the "Safe Travel Guaranteed" campaign as a way to reinvigorate the tourism sector, which included a compensation package for those infected with the virus while on holiday.[14] In July, he reprimanded health minister Alisher Shodmonov and Mayor of Tashkent Jahongir Artikhojayev for failing to stop the spread of the virus.[15] In August, he awarded honorary titles and medals to workers in healthcare and science who were on the frontlines of the pandemic.[16] Earlier that month, he has instructed the government to ease lockdown measures step by step.[17]

On 1 July 2022 protests broke out in the autonomous region of Karakalpakstan over proposed amendments to the Constitution of Uzbekistan which would have ended Karakalpakstan's status as an autonomous region of Uzbekistan and right to secede from Uzbekistan via referendum. They were brutally suppressed, at least 18 people were killed.[18]

On 5 September 2017, Mirziyoyev conducted a state visit to Kyrgyzstan, the first visit of its kind since 2000.[21] A similar historic first visit was made in March 2018 to Dushanbe, Tajikistan.[22] These were part of a bigger effort to improve relations with these two countries, which were riddled with tension primarily due to border disputes with those countries. In January 2017, regular commercial flights between Tashkent and Dushanbe resumed for the first time in 25 years.[23]

On 18 December 2020, he is chaired the summit of the Commonwealth of Independent States in Tashkent, likely through virtual means.[24] That year was the first time that Uzbekistan assumed the presidency of the Council of Heads of State of the CIS.[25] Congratulating Azeri President Ilham Aliyev on the victory in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War, he pledged that Uzbekistan will to contribute to this process of restoration of the occupied territories, including mosques, and cultural sites.[26] Mirziyoyev's former press secretary claimed that the 2021 Kyrgyzstan–Tajikistan conflict was "regulated as a result of personal intervention of President Shavkat Mirziyoyev."[27]

From left to right: Ziroatkhon Hoshimova, President Mirziyoyev, Ram Nath Kovind, Savita Kovind and Narendra Modi at Rashtrapati Bhavan in New Delhi on October 1, 2018

Mirziyoyev has made sure that Uzbekistan plays an important role in the peace talks between the Government of Afghanistan and the Taliban. In June of that year, the Uzbek foreign ministry, established diplomatic contacts with the terrorist organization.[28] In August 2018, Mirziyoyev requested successfully that a Taliban delegation visit Tashkent to discuss Uzbekistan's role in the guaranteeing of peace in Afghanistan.[29] In an address to his counterparts at a Commonwealth of Independent States summit in Dushanbe, Mirziyoyev extensively spoke of the instability in Afghanistan and the need to stop equipped and financed terrorist cells from leaving Syria and Iraq to go fight in Central Asia.[30] In April 2019, he met with Zalmay Khalilzad, United States Special Representative for Afghanistan Reconciliation to discussed various avenues to take in order to stabilize the reconstruction of the Afghan economy.[31] During his speech to the Seventy-fifth session of the United Nations General Assembly in 2020, during which he delivered his address in the Uzbek language (the first time that the language has been used in the UN), President Mirziyoyev discussed the "need to establish at the UN a Permanent Committee that will listen to the hopes and aspirations of the Afghan people".[32]

Mirziyoyev's government began Operation Mehr (also known as Operation Compassion) in 2019 to return noncombatant citizens from camps in northeast Syria held by the Syrian Democratic Forces.[33] On 10 October 2019, in accordance his instructions, 64 children were returned from Iraq to Tashkent as part of this operation.[34] This was repeated during Ramadan in 2021.[35]