ALMA-ATA, May 18 (Xinhuanet) -- Tajik President Emomali Rakhmonov warned Wednesday that a spread of violence in Central Asia would be worse than the Balkans conflicts in the 1990s, reports from Tajik capital city Dushanbe said.

    "Instability in Uzbekistan is not in the interests of Tajikistan, or Kyrgyzstan, or Turkmenistan. I pray to God nothing happens in our densely populated region. It would be worse than the Balkans," Rakhmonov told reporters after meeting with Kyrgyzstan's Acting President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, saying that Tajikistan was closely following the situation in neighboring Uzbekistan.

    Bakiyev said that he believed the violence was linked to Islamic militants.

    "Time will tell, but the hand of religious extremism is visiblehere," he said.

    Uzbekistan's Prosecutor-General Rashid Kadyrov said Tuesday that 169 people, of whom 32 were government troops, had been killed in the violence last week in the eastern city of Andijan, where protesters attacked government buildings and released thousands of prisoners.

    Uzbek President Islam Karimov blamed a branch of the outlawed radical Hizb ut-Tahrir group for the turmoil in the east of his country.

    Thousands of Uzbek people converged on the border crossings with the neighboring Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan after the riot broke out in Andijan. Enditem