Uzbek leader’s daughter says good wishes helping ‘recovery’

The daughter of Uzbek strongman Islam Karimov, who has suffered a brain haemorrhage, on Wednesday said public support was helping her father’s recovery, as rumours swirl over the veteran leader’s condition.

Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva posted a message on social media thanking “everyone for your kind words of support and best wishes for the speedy recovery of our President.”

“It means the world to us, and I am sure that your heartfelt good wishes are helping in his recovery,” wrote Karimova-Tillyaeva, Uzbekistan’s ambassador to UNESCO.

The statement is the first one on Karimov’s health since his youngest daughter announced on Monday that he was in a “stable” condition in intensive care after suffering a cerebral haemorrhage over the weekend.

Long lambasted by rights groups for his brutal crushing of dissent, Karimov, 78, has ruled Central Asian Uzbekistan with an iron fist for over a quarter of a century.

While information is very tightly controlled in the ex-Soviet nation, reports have appeared in opposition media based abroad claiming that Karimov is dead.

Anonymous sources in Uzbekistan denied the reports to Russian news agencies.

Uzbek officials have made no mention of Karimov’s health since a terse government statement on Sunday saying he had been “hospitalised”.

Officials have reportedly cancelled a celebration that Karimov was set to attend as the country marks 25 years since independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 on Wednesday and Thursday.

The government on Tuesday released a statement saying that world leaders including US President Barack Obama and Chinese leader Xi Xinping had congratulated Karimov on Uzbekistan’s independence anniversary.

Karimov lacks a clear successor after being re-elected to a fifth term in 2015 with more than 90 percent of the vote.

The country has never held an election judged free and fair by international monitors.

The wily leader has played off Russia, China and the West against each other to ensure strategically located Uzbekistan — which borders volatile Afghanistan — has avoided total isolation.