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The journalist in me says I should write about the unprecedented cuts in the ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ World Service.

Five of our language services will be closed and up to 650 of my colleagues could lose their jobs.

The writer inside me says I am too close the the news and I should let some time pass.

I am caught - as usual - inbetween journalism and literature.

Therefore let me start my piece from afar.

This week one of the leading Russian theatres - Sovremennik - was performing Chekhov in London.

Anton Chekhov is without doubt one of the greatest Russian writers, though during his lifetime he was considered the "smallest brother" in the family of Russian greats such as Pushkin, Gogol, Dostoevsky and Tolstoy.

From the perspective of more recent times his reputation is ever increasing. Such 20th century classics from Kafka, Borges and Becket all owe Chekhov more than any other writer.

Yet, watching his "Three Sisters", especially the monologues about the happy future of mankind in 100 - 200 years, I felt a bit embarrassed to say the least.

I don't blame Chekhov for it; neither do I hold him responsible for the pathos of the theatre, nor for the kind of British scepticism that has crept into my mind since I have lived in the UK.

There was something else in that scepticism.

Last week President Karimov of Uzbekistan has been received in Brussels by all manner of European and NATO officials and dignitaries, despite uproar from human rights activists and organisations.

You can read the background to it here.

The main concern was that the president of the European Union, the head of NATO and other officials are meeting with the leader of a country that has one of the worst human rights records in the world.

Human rights groups and some Western governments hold Mr Karimov responsible for the 2005 events in the eastern Uzbek city of Andijan, when government troops reportedly opened fire on mainly unarmed protesters, killing hundreds of them.

But before coming to Brussels, Mr Karimov as if to break some sort of taboo mentioned the Andijan at a Cabinet meeting. For the first time he blamed the local authorities for the uprising and not the West and the Western media.

He said: "Andijan has its special position in Uzbekistan. Not paying attention to the situation in Andijan, the engagement of the region's leaders in certain improper activities, resulted in them losing themselves and being indifferent [to the situation]. In addition, their involvement in dishonest activities destroyed such a great number of people.

After some time has lapsed, I would like to talk about participants in the Andijan events. Being the president I am speaking frankly. All of them were Uzbek people. Therefore, no matter who and how participated in these events, I personally think, I am expressing my personal opinion, I think that of course a senior official surely had responsibility before these people in any case. Nonetheless, no matter how these people participated in these events there are still some points that torment me.

"We did not pay attention to them at the time. To avoid the outbreak of such events, above all, we should live with the concerns of people and humans in all places."

So the words have been said.

Never mind the hundreds of people that were killed, the thousands that were prosecuted, arrested, exiled.

I come from the part of the world where the rulers say all right words about the happy future of their people and the harmony among mankind, but according to communications that were published by Wikileaks, if not the politicians themselves, then their sons, daughters and close relatives are competing to be in Forbes' lists of multi-millionaires and other compliation lists of the "rich and famous".

The Brussels hosts behaved quite strangely too.

Initially, when human rights groups alerted us to a possible back-door visit by the Uzbek President, and we called them, officials replied that they have no information about such visit.

Later, when the diary of the EU Commission's President was published and clearly showed the meeting, they said that the visit was initiated by the Uzbek side.

Finally, when the Uzbek state agency announced the visit, stating that the President Karimov was going to Brussels on the invitation of the EU Commission's President, officials from the EU Commission declined to comment.

There's a famous saying that the art of diplomacy is to say nothing about the things you know.

A friend of mine has extended it: "whereas the art of journalism is to say every- and anything about things you don't know".

Though I don't agree with the latter part of that statement, I think this case shows how hyper-inflated are words nowadays.

One thing is said, another thing is meant and the third thing is done.

Here in the World Service we have a training course called "Say what you mean".

Making a course like that widely available, I guess, might help many of us to rejoin and rejoice with likes of Chekhov.