Abdulaziz Kamilov

Abdulaziz Kamilov began his diplomatic career in the Soviet service, with assignments in Lebanon and Syria and work in the Foreign Ministry’s Middle East department. He also pursued historical research at the Soviet Academy of Sciences. After Uzbekistan became independent, he worked at its embassy in Moscow, became deputy head of the national security service, and moved into senior foreign policy posts. His first term as foreign minister, from 1994 to 2003, preceded his appointment to Washington. ^{1, 2}

On June 1, 2004, Kamilov signed the United States–Central Asia Trade and Investment Framework Agreement for Uzbekistan. The other signatories included Kazakhstan’s ambassador Kanat Saudabayev and U.S. Trade Representative Robert Zoellick. The agreement created a council for discussing obstacles to trade and investment, including labor, environmental, and intellectual property questions. His American work also extended beyond federal diplomacy: in April 2008 he addressed the Seattle–Tashkent sister city association’s celebration of its thirty-fifth anniversary. ^{3, 4}

His ambassadorship encompassed the severe deterioration in relations after the 2005 violence in Andijan and the closure of the American military facility at Karshi-Khanabad. Returning to Washington as foreign minister in July 2018, Kamilov recalled how those disputes had complicated discussion of religious freedom. At the National Press Club he acknowledged that further measures were needed to implement U.S. recommendations, while defending his government’s record and arguing that the earlier American designation of Uzbekistan as a country of particular concern had a political background. ⁵

Kamilov returned to the Foreign Ministry as first deputy in 2010 and became foreign minister again in 2012. In March 2022 he publicly affirmed Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and stated that Uzbekistan did not recognize the separatist republics in Donbas. He subsequently left the ministry and held presidential foreign policy posts. Appointed foreign policy adviser in 2025, he represented Uzbekistan at the March 2026 Global Baku Forum, where he advocated transport links connecting Central Asia, the South Caucasus, and Europe. ^{2, 6, 7}