Thousands of Soviet troops were sent to the Fergana Valley, southeast of the Uzbek capital Tashkent, to re-establish order after clashes in which local Uzbeks hunted down members of the Meskhetian minority in several days of rioting between June 4–11, 1989; about 100 people were killed. On June 23, 1989, Gorbachev removed Rafiq Nishonov as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Uzbek SSR and replaced him with <answer>Karimov</answer>, who went on to lead Uzbekistan as a Soviet Republic and subsequently as an independent state.
Who replaced Nishonov?
Karimov