Uzbekistan officially announced on May 5 that it quits the GUUAM, a grouping of Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan and Moldova, the Georgian Foreign Ministry reported.

The Uzbekistani authorities sent an official notification about this decision to the Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin, who currently chairs the organization.

Uzbekistan joined GUUAM, which was formed with U.S. backing, in 1999. But in 2002 Uzbekistan announced that it planned to pull out from the organization. Following this announcement, Uzbekistan started to ignore all summits and working meetings that were held in frames of GUUAM.