President Congratulates Defenders of Homeland

Each year in the history of independent and sovereign January 14 is marked as the Day of Defenders of Homeland. On such occasion the President of the Republic of Uzbekistan, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Uzbekistan Islam Karimov sends a message of congratulation to the defenders of Homeland.

Below is the full text of the festive congratulation by President presented in the Enligsh version by the Information Agency "Jahon".

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Dear soldiers and sergeants, officers and generals, veterans of the Armed Forces!

It gives me an enormous pleasure to sincerely and heartily congratulate you and all compatriots who have devoted themselves to a noble cause of defending the Fatherland on the landmark date in the life of our country - the Day of Defender of Homeland.

Today there are all grounds to state that in Uzbekistan we have created on the professional basis the mobile Armed Forces well equipped with a modern weaponry and technology capable to provide for the security, territorial integrity and inviolability of the country’s borders, the tranquility and peaceful labor of its citizens.

To establish such an army that meets all contemporary requirements we had to accomplish the enormous work by both its scale and depth in accordance with the Program of reforming the National Armed Forces of the Republic of Uzbekistan. During the course of implementation of this Program the Army has stepped into the qualitatively another system of establishment and management of the Armed Forces. The new organizational and staff structure has been adopted. In the shortest period of time the military districts, border regions and subdivisions of Special Operation Forces have been established. The entire mechanism of managing the country’s defense complex, the system of combat training and operative and strategic planning led by the Joint Staff of the Armed Forces, have been reconsidered. The enormous work has been accomplished on redeploying the formations and units to the most threatening operational directions.

The active duty service has been reduced to one year. The military service in the Mobilization and Recruitment Reserve has been introduced and is successfully developing. The complex of measures has been implemented on strengthening the material and technical basis of troops, equipping them with updated weaponry, improving the social, living and housing conditions of servicemen.

Consistently establishing the national army on a systemic basis we have proceeded from the geostrategic and geopolitical location occupied by Uzbekistan in the region and modern world, internal and external challenges and threats to the security of the country the most serious of which are growth and intensification of international terrorism, extremism, expanding scales of drug aggression, the danger of proliferation of weapon of mass destruction. The particular threat to security is posed by escalation of the military and political situation in Afghanistan, where almost for 30 years the fratricidal war continues with civilians being killed.

It can be said without exaggeration that our army has adopted the best world experience of military construction and at the same time sacredly preserves the national traditions and considers the peculiarities of possible theater of war and combat operations.

In accordance with these objectives, based on the deep elaborations and calculations the principally new structure of establishing the combat and servicing subdivisions has been worked out and introduced, their staff and objectives have radically changed, and as the final outcome, this has profoundly raised their self-sufficiency, combat capabilities and fire power.

The laborious and consistent work is underway to equip and reequip the army with necessary weaponry and military machines. The measures were taken to strengthen the fleet of battle helicopters, the air defense forces, to provide the army with other types of modern weaponry.

The most important result of the reforms of the Armed Forces has become the change of moral and spiritual climate in the army. The relations between servicemen in the army formations, and most importantly, the attitude of society towards army and military service have cardinally changed. The service in the Armed Forces, without exaggeration, has become not only the constitutional duty of Uzbekistan citizen, but also one of the prestigious professions in the country.

We attach an enormous significance to further growth of professional skills of sergeants, which have become not simply a connecting link between officers and private staff, but truly a “backbone” of our army, the reliable assistants to officers. At the moment, the sergeants who have been trained at the special well equipped sergeant schools are not only the junior commanders closest to soldiers, but they are the elder brothers for an entire private staff, the important factor of a sound moral, psychological and spiritual state in the army formations.

The system of education is being radically changed at the military schools where the training and upbringing of the future officers are built on the principally new academic, technical and moral basis that meets the modern requirements. Today it can be said with an enormous satisfaction that thanks to the established unique system of training, retraining and upbringing of the military cadres, practically the entire command and sergeant staff of the Armed Forces has been renewed.

The new, above all, the mature, intellectually prepared cadres strongly eager to serve and uphold the interests and frontiers of independent and sovereign Uzbekistan, the peaceful life and tranquility of people have joined the army.

Each and every person living on our soil - regardless of his nationality, religion and beliefs - can rightly be proud of these achievements.

Dear compatriots!

Our most important objective for today and the future is to continue and deepen the work we have started to reform and strengthen the Armed Forces, keep step with the growing requirements on education and combat training of servicemen, equipping the army with modern armament and technology.

It is important to provide for the full-fledged functioning of the army as a well-organized mechanism in which each subdivision having its own function coordinates the service and combat activity with the units and subdivisions of other military branches, establishing the single and indissolubly connected battle complex. The objective of providing for the close interaction of all branches and types of troops in the course of training and combat application and maintaining the country’s security remains the main task of the Joint Staff, the command staff of the military districts, security ministries and agencies, and commanders of all levels.

The most significant part of the forthcoming work is to supply the army with weaponry and military equipment. It is an open secret that today the modern weaponry is very expensive. Therefore, it is necessary to elaborate the troops equipment programs proceeding from the priority needs of the Armed Forces, procure, above all, those types of arms, which would meet the contemporary requirements and, at the same time, strengthen the battle and fire power of army.

The most serious attention must be paid to supplying the personnel with reliable means and equipment of individual and group protection from the impact of various dangerous and deadly types of weapons.

Raising the efficiency of combat training remains the most important task. We ought to continuously learn the military art. It is of a special importance to supply the sergeant schools and military academies, formations and units with modern simulators, range equipment capable to provide for the maximum level of real battle conditions. We must consider the training simulators and modern technical tools of training based on the use of information and communication technologies, modeling and simulating methods as a practical and effective instrument able to resolve the most sophisticated tasks on a modern level and raise the combat capability of army.

2008 has been declared as the Year of Youth. In its turn, it sets the new yet more responsible tasks, above all, before the command staff of the Armed Forces of our country to ensure the interests and aspirations of young officers, sergeants and soldiers who make up today the core of the army.

In this regard, it is necessary to underscore that along with further deepening the process of modernization of the national army, strengthening the defense capability of the country, ensuring inviolability of state borders, the most important component of addressing these objectives will be the issues of social support of servicemen who have devoted their lives to a noble cause of defending the Homeland, as well as further improvement of their living and social conditions, raising the salary and their comprehensive support.

I want to state once again that implementation of these tasks is not only my obligation, but also my duty.

I congratulate you, my dears, your relatives and friends on the Day of Defender of Homeland and the 16th anniversary of the Armed Forces of the Republic of Uzbekistan. I wish you all a strong health, success in your service, happiness and well-being, strength and energy in serving the Fatherland.

Islam Karimov,

President of the Republic of Uzbekistan,
Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces