If a Russian-backed revolution forces the president of a former Soviet state to flee, one of the last places you'd expect him to go is Belarus. But Minsk appears to be a surprisingly congenial place for Russia-bashing. Kyrgyzstan's deposed president Kurmanbek Bakiyev late last week openly suggested -- without providing much evidence -- that Russia pushed him out because of his refusal to kick the U.S. out of its air base there:
Asked about speculation that Moscow may have played a role in the uprising, Bakiyev said Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had been unhappy at his decision in 2009 to extend the lease on the U.S. base.
"They told me: 'Why are you holding on to this Manas base, this worries us, this does not suit us'," Bakiyev told reporters in Russian at a news conference.
"Russia's leadership was irritated, annoyed by the presence of the base and this factor also played a certain role."
And then on Sunday, Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko chimed in:
Belarussian President Alexander Lukashenko on Sunday berated Russia for not paying for its military bases in his country and warned that he could snub the summit of a Moscow-dominated security pact next month over Kyrgyzstan....
"If someone has forgotten, Russia has two military bases on Belarussian land," Lukashenko said. "And Russia pays us zero rubles, zero kopeks and zero dollars for these bases....
Lukashenko also threatened to skip an informal summit of the Moscow-dominated Collective Security Treaty Organization, set for May 8 in Moscow, unless Kyrgyzstan's "coup d'etat" is included in the agenda....
"What sort of organization is this, if there is bloodshed in one of our member states and an anti-constitutional coup d'etat takes place, and this body keeps silent?" Lukashenko said. "At this stage, there is no agenda. If nothing is changed, I have nothing to do there."
Will he be asking for NATO membership next?
Joshua Kucera, a senior correspondent, is Eurasianet's former Turkey/Caucasus editor and has written for the site since 2007.
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