WASHINGTON, Oct. 6 (UPI) -- The U.S. Senate has voted to delay a $23 million payment to Uzbekistan in protest against alleged human rights abuses in that country.
The payment, for past use of the Karshi-Khanabad airbase, will be postponed for at least a year, the BBC reported Thursday.
In July, the Uzbek government asked the United States to leave the base, after Washington criticized the government's violent suppression of May protests in the town of Andijan, in which up to 500 people are said to have been killed.
U.S. forces had used the base for operations in neighboring Afghanistan for nearly four years.
"Paying our bills is important. But more important is America's standing up for itself, avoiding the misimpression that we overlook massacres and avoiding cash transfers to the treasury of a dictator," said Sen. John McCain., who sponsored the amendment that will block payment.
The Arizona Republican said the actions of Uzbek President Islam Karimov were so alarming that the Senate should be considering sanctions against him, "not how to transfer millions of taxpayers' dollars to his government."
