The US’ MCT Corporation is offering its 85% stake in Uzbek mobile operator Coscom to Nordic telecoms company TeliaSonera, a source close to the negotiations told Prime-Tass Monday.

The source said the negotiations might be wrapped up before the end of July and the deal might be finalized before the year-end.

Several sources said MCT was also offering the stake to several investors from Turkey and United Arab Emirates.

Earlier reports said Russian mobile company MegaFon had planned to buy the stake, but that the talks had been suspended.

In February, Coscom had its license suspended for 10 days due to network malfunctions. Another license suspension is lurking, as MCT is reported not to be investing enough in Coscom to keep its network running, according to some reports earlier this month.

Investment in Coscom has topped US$100 million since operations started in 1996.

MCT holds 85% in Coscom, which currently has 410,000 users. There are currently six mobile operators in Uzbekistan, which had 3.415 million users as of 1 May, according to Uzbekistan’s Communications and Information Agency.