American Plans to Build Military Facility in Southern Kyrgyzstan Fall Through
Plans for the United States to construct an anti-terror training center in southern Kyrgyzstan have collapsed. The demise of the project raises concerns about stabilization prospects in southern Kyrgyzstan, a region that is still searching to regain a sense of equilibrium following an outburst of inter-ethnic violence in June.
The Osh Polygon -- a facility projected to cost upwards of $10 million, designed to train security forces in urban combat techniques -- was advertised as a pre-solicitation on the US government’s Federal Business Opportunities website on June 19. On August 25, the project was abruptly cancelled.
The US Embassy in Bishkek offered no explanation for the move and referred inquiries to the Pentagon. The facility was to be financed by money form US Central Command’s counter-narcotics fund. Both Washington and Bishkek denied that the facility would be used as a US military base. [For background see EurasiaNet’s archive].
From the outset, the planned construction of the training center was a source of geopolitical controversy. The announcement vexed Russia, which also harbored plans of building a Collective Security Treaty Organization training center in the region. [For background see EurasiaNet’s archive]. Moscow has said it will wait until after parliamentary elections on October 10 to re-open negotiations on its basing options in Kyrgyzstan.
In recent weeks, the Kyrgyz defense officials grew increasingly cagey about the proposed US facility, denying any knowledge of pending construction plans despite confirmation from the US side that the training center remained the subject of negotiations.
Insiders suggest that US defense officials are deeply perturbed by recent developments in Kyrgyzstan and are “very nervous” about Washington’s long-term position in the strategically important country. The Pentagon’s top priority is retaining the Manas transit center, a key logistics hub near Bishkek serving US and NATO forces in Afghanistan. [For background see EurasiaNet’s archive].
Recent political turmoil in Kyrgyzstan – starting with the collapse of former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev’s administration in April, and continuing with inter-ethnic violence in southern Kyrgyzstan in June – made construction of the training facility untenable, regional experts say.
“It now looks like a bureaucratic hangover,” Paul Quinn-Judge, the Central Asia Project Director for International Crisis Group, told EurasiaNet.org recently. “It didn’t make any sense from April on, and it certainly couldn’t be located in Osh after the June events.”
Deirdre Tynan is a Bishkek-based reporter specializing in Central Asian affairs.
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