Kyrgyzstan's government has submitted a decree to parliament for the closure of a key US air base in the Central Asian state, Kyrgyz officials say.
The air base supports US and Nato operations in Afghanistan and is the only US base in Central Asia.
For Russia, on the other hand, it is a significant diplomatic victory as it seeks to reassert its influence in all former Soviet republics and beyond, our correspondent says.
President Bakiyev made his announcement on Tuesday in Moscow, where he was promised more than $2bn (£1.4bn) in Russian aid.
He said the Manas base - set up in 2001 to assist the US military operation against al-Qaeda and the Taleban in Afghanistan - was only meant to be open for two years at the most.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-p … 868586.stmBut perhaps more importantly, he made it clear the Americans had not been willing to pay what Bishkek regards as the right price to keep the base open, our correspondent says.
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This could probably be a big blow to operations in Afghanistan. And what I find most interesting is how Russia is using its economic power to reassert itself in former USSR regions. And the fact that all this has popular support from the local populations doesn't speak well for the US.
Thoughts?
With the Taliban on the rise in Pakistan and constantly fucking up supply routes from there, even blowing up bridges and now with the probable closure of this base in Kyrgyzstan. Is the Allied operations in Afghanistan fucked? (like it was ever anything else, should've just gone straight for AQ and nabbed them all before they fucked off elsewhere, rather than get stuck into a fight with local Taliban/Pashtun nationalists which are probably impossible to actually defeat)
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Especially with O talking about how Afghanistan operations are going to be ramped up a few notches, I guess this is a giant spanner in the works
Last edited by Mekstizzle (2009-02-04 04:05:26)