Uzbekistan angrily dismissed witness reports today that it opened fire on civilians during a rebellion in the eastern town of Andizhan and accused Western media of portraying the country as a tyranny.
"Not a single civilian was killed by government forces there," Prosecutor General Rashid Kadyrov told reporters.
He put the overall death toll at 169, including 32 servicemen, and said reports by witnesses and human rights groups, some of whom put the death toll at up to 500, were "deliberate attempts to deceive the international community".
Witnesses said Uzbek troops gunned down hundreds of peaceful demonstrators in Andizhan during last Friday's unrest, sparked by the trial of Muslim businessmen and blamed by officials on Islamic extremists.
President Islam Karimov, who abruptly joined the news conference while Kadyrov was speaking, criticised Western and Russian media for biased reporting.
"There is a broad campaign in the media, especially in the Western media, to be ahead of events ... and to show that Uzbekistan is a tyranny, that in Uzbekistan they shoot innocent people," Mr Karimov said.
"Who would shoot at people who do not have weapons?" he asked. "There are no such people in any government in the world."
The Andizhan events, little covered by tightly controlled Uzbek media, also prompted US concerns, with a State Department spokesman saying that Washington was "deeply disturbed by the reports that the Uzbek authorities fired on demonstrators".
But Mr Kadyrov, addressing a packed room of reporters and diplomats, called these assertions absurd. "There are absolutely absurd statements that troops opened fire on peaceful demonstrators ... Almost all of those killed ... either had guns in their hands or nearby."
He said that the rebels, whom he described as "terrorists", "criminals" and "extremists", took more than 50 people hostage, and among them three women and two children were killed. "It's blasphemy and a mockery of common sense to say that it was a peaceful demonstration," he said.
Uzbekistan is a close US ally and has allowed Washington to use an airbase for operations in Afghanistan. But Karimov, facing US criticism over his handling of the crisis, accused Washington of double standards. "Certain countries that have unleashed a war in Iraq should think about the methods they are using there ... because they should look at themselves first, and only then at other countries," he said in an apparent reference to the US-led war in Iraq.