TASHKENT -- Uzbek President-elect Shavkat Mirziyaev has signed a resolution announcing an international competition to erect a monument to his late predecessor Islam Karimov.
Media reports in Uzbekistan said on December 7 that the resolution was signed on December 2, and carried its text.
"An international competition has been announced to create a monument to the first president of the Republic of Uzbekistan, Islam Karimov, in order to preserve the memory of him," it said.
Uzbekistan's government said that Karimov died on September 2, at 78, after suffering a stroke. He had ruled the Central Asian nation with an iron hand since 1989, when it was still a Soviet republic.
In mid-September, a reconstructed ancient mosque in Tashkent was named Islam-Ota (Father Islam) in his honor.
Mirziyaev, prime minister since 2003, became interim president after Karimov's death and was elected to a five-year term on December 4.
