The two leaders met in Ukraine's southern city of Yalta, where Putin is on a working visit and Karimov is on holiday, said Alexei Gromov.

The two leaders agreed to hold joint "military exercises in the mountains of Uzbekistan with the participation of air forces," the RIA Novosti news agency quoted Gromov as saying.

The two leaders also "discussed the issues of military cooperation and providing aid to building Uzbekistan's armed forces," he said.

Following the September 11, attacks in New York and Washington in 2001, several of former Soviet republics, including Uzbekistan, have hosted US troops on their soil for operations in neighboring Afghanistan.

Russia, the former master in Central Asia, did not object to the initial deployment but has since sought to boost its influence in the region.

In mid-July, Washington froze millions of dollars in aid to Uzbekistan because of a lack of progress in democratic reforms in the country, which Karimov has run with an iron fist since the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991.

Last year US Congress-approved aid delivered to Uzbekistan totalled some 86 million dollars and was due to come to 18 million dollars this year.

WAR.WIRE