 The deaths of many people during unrest in the Uzbek city of Andijan on 12 and 13 May 2005 has been widely characterised as a massacre by state forces.President Nursultan Nazarbayev of Kazakhstan, while on a state visit to Uzbekistan after that event, told Uzbek President Islam Karimov that the Uzbek government's actions in quelling unrest helped "protect the peace of 26 million Uzbekistanis.A different outcome would have destabilized the region today."