Kazakhstan: Top US General Courts Astana's Participation in Afghan Resupply Initiative

The head of the US Central Command, Gen. David Petraeus, is touring Central Asian states amid frenzied speculation that Kyrgyz leaders are considering closing an American air base outside of Bishkek in return for $2 billion in assistance from Russia.

The Kyrgyz government on January 14 declined to comment on the ever increasing number of media reports citing unnamed but senior officials in President Kurmanbek Bakiyev's administration who claim the base's six-month lease will not be renewed later this year.

For example, the Russian newspaper Kommersant reported January 14 that Bakiyev, keen to secure his own political future and wipe out Kyrgyzstan's $180 million debt to Russia, is willing to take Russian assistance in return for signing an order to terminate the Manas base lease. The report went on to say that Bakiyev would sign the order in the presence of Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, during an expected visit to Moscow later in January. The United States currently pays $17.5 million in annual rent for the base to Kyrgyzstan.

A US Embassy representative in Bishkek told EurasiaNet on January 14 that American diplomats were aware of the reports and were "checking them with the Kyrgyz government."

Petraeus' entry into the maelstrom of uncertainty is fueling reports that US Central Command is negotiating a 'Plan B' with neighboring countries.

The CENTCOM commander was in Kazakhstan on January 14 for a series of meetings with top-tier Kazakh officials, including President Nursultan Nazarbayev and Deputy Defense Minister Lt. Gen. Bulat Sembinov. The Kazakh news paper Vremya reported that while Petraeus and US envoy to Kazakhstan, Richard Hoagland, were holed-up in discussions, Almaty Airport was being surveyed by US military technical personnel.

"According to our sources, since Monday, January 12, the US military has been conducting a field inspection of aircraft and ground equipment at the airport in the southern capital," according to a report in the paper's January 14 edition.

Following his talks, Petraeus said he sought Kazakhstani support for a US initiative to widen a northern resupply network to Afghanistan. The coalition's main resupply conduit via Pakistan has come under intensifying pressure from Taliban militants in recent months.

"We have discussed Kazakhstan's contribution to the so-called Northern transit network which would enable us to supply the Afghanistan troops," Petraeus said after meeting with Nazarbayev. He also stated that the United States had no plans to withdraw its forces currently stationed in Kyrgyzstan.

Petraeus is due to arrive in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, January 17 on a one-day visit. Cash-strapped and hard-pressed, Tajikistan may prove amenable to US enquiries about helping expand a northern resupply network. Dushanbe has already signed a bilateral agreement with Afghanistan to enable the transit of humanitarian supplies across the two countries' rugged, but insurgent-free, 835-mile border.

Regional analysts caution, however, that "sensitivities" to an expanded US military presence in the region remain formidable. Brokering any new basing arrangements, then, could prove a protracted process.

With the strategic wisdom of relying heavily on a Pakistani resupply route coming under increasingly doubt, the development of a broad Central Asian transit corridor remains an essential long term alternative, Christopher Langton, a former British military and defense attaché in Russia and analyst the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London, said in interview with EurasiaNet.

"I think it's not probably surprising that [negotiations with the Central Asian states are] taking a long time. There are sensitivities going back some years to 2005 when the US moved out of [the Karshi] Khanabad [base in Uzbekistan] because of the criticism of Uzbekistan's human rights record. So if there is an attempt to move back into the region and use these facilities, then these tensions, to some extent, remain," he said.

"Further to that, of course, there has been a really strong line taken by Moscow in the past through the Shanghai Organization of Cooperation . . . over NATO's use of bases in the area in what they [the Russians] regard as their sphere of influence," Langton continued.

Under the circumstances, Central Asian leaders are reluctant to agree to anything that would be sure to upset the Kremlin. They likewise don't want to do anything that alienates local populations, Langton added. Perhaps the key to realizing the strategic goal of expanding a Central Asian supply route is a rapprochement between Moscow and the West. "The critical country may be Russia," Langton said. "We may be moving slowly ahead [toward a rapprochement], but I wouldn't say that we are about to sign any major agreements anytime soon."