by Galima Bukharbayeva and Abdullah Vakhabov

TASHKENT, Feb 16 (AFP)

A string of powerful blasts rocked the Uzbek capital Tuesday, killing 14 and injuring 128, in what President Islam Karimov said was an attempt on his life.

A spokesman for the emergency situations ministry, updating the death toll, said that five car-bombs had exploded shortly after 11:00 a.m. (0600 GMT). A sixth blast was also reported.

Karimov, 61, immediately went on state television to denounce the perpetrators who he said were trying to assassinate him.

The president blamed the bombing on �the people who organized this and people who lacked awareness and who were led astray.

�I am ready to amnesty� the latter group, he added.

The president had been due to chair a cabinet session in the government building when two car-bombs went off just 100 meters (yards) away on the central Mustakillik Square.

Interior Minister Zakir Almatov suggested links to Moslem extremists but he stopped short of making a direct accusation.

Karimov, standing in front of the damaged government building surrounded by officials and bodyguards, said: �The goal was to do away with the president, to violate order in the country and to frighten (us), but we have forces to fight extremism.�

He pledged to �cut off the hands� of those reponsible.

�Some forces wanted to show that Uzbekistan is not a politically stable country,� said Karimov, who has ruled this Central Asian republic with an iron fist since it won independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

A police spokesman later said that several suspected culprits were arrested at Tashkent�s airport, but would give no details.

No group has yet claimed responsiblity for the blast, but diplomatic sources said that Islamic extremists hostile to Karimov�s crackdown on all fundamentalists were the likeliest suspects.

�Your first thought would immediately be that it is the Islamists,� said one western diplomat based in Tashkent. �The authorities are very hostile to Islamic fundamentalists.�

Scores of people were in the area around Mustakillik Square when the blasts went off, blowing out windows in buildings and sending people fleeing in panic.

One police officer said that shots had been fired in the vicinity of the government building soon after the explosions but this could not be immediately confirmed.

�Several people were torn to pieces and one body was thrown out into the road,� one witness said.

Government workers originally thought the blasts had occurred in the building itself and panic ensued as they tried to escape.

The television news showed the bloodied faces of government workers and the building�s sagging seventh floor. Police warned passersby that the building was in danger of collapsing.

One car bomb explosion rocked Tashkent�s airport, while another shook the national bank. A third device placed in a private home detonated near a traffic police office, the national security office said.

The entire city center was closed to all traffic shortly after the blasts and many roads were blocked by buses.

Police patrolled the streets of the capital, which were quiet early on Wednesday.

The border between Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan was closed.

Russian President Boris Yeltsin denounced the blasts as a �cynical terrorist attack,� the Interfax agency said.

MOSCOW, Feb 17 (AFP)

Russia�s upper house of parliament on Wednesday ratified a peace treaty with Ukraine to lead the way for a border dispute settlement between the two Slavic neighbors.

The Federation Council approved the so-called Big Agreement in a 106-25 vote that Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov hailed as a �triumph of common sense.�

President Boris Yeltsin congratulated his Ukrainian counterpart Leonid Kuchma on the ratification in a Wednesday telephone conversation. Both leaders must sign the agreement before it comes into force.

The treaty settles the two nation�s outstanding border dispute by permanently handing Ukraine control of the Crimean peninsula and its Black Sea port of Sevastopol after Moscow�s 20-year lease on its fleet moored there expires.

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said the treaty �opens the way for settlement of all contentious issues� that remain between the two sides.

More nationalist Russian politicians however pressed the regional leaders in the upper house to shoot down the agreement arguing that it hurt Russia�s national interests.

�I can say firmly that our relations with Ukraine will not improve with this treaty,� declared Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov in an impassioned speech to the senators.

�We will lose Sevastopol, the Crimea and access to the Black Sea. We will push Ukraine into NATO,� Luzhkov said.

Kiev has suggested it may seek to join the US-led military alliance should Moscow fail to cede its ownership rights to Crimea.

Kuchma has cancelled several scheduled summits with Yeltsin because of the Russian parliament�s unwillingness to sign the treaty.