EurasiaNet.org has already called attention to how Azerbaijan and Georgia assisted the CIA in carrying out a secret program to detain and interrogate suspected terrorists. But let’s not forget that Uzbekistan also played a role in facilitating so-called renditions to CIA “black sites.”

Uzbekistan (along with Azerbaijan and Georgia) was among 54 nations that cooperated with the CIA, according to a recently released report, Globalizing Torture: Secret Detentions and Extraordinary Renditions. The report was prepared the Open Society Justice Initiative, a component of the New York-based Open Society Foundations (OSF). [EurasiaNet.org also operates under OSF’s auspices, but has no direct contact with the Justice Initiative].

The report suggests that Uzbekistan may have hosted, and, presumably, interrogated some terrorist suspects that were extraordinarily rendered by the CIA. Tashkent also helped out by permitting the use of its airspace and airports “for flights associated with the CIA’s extraordinary rendition operations.”

Uzbekistan’s involvement in the CIA program can’t be considered all that shocking, given that President Islam Karimov’s administration is notorious among international rights watchdog for engaging in systematic torture.