Under the headline "A Kyrgyz interim leader says US base unjustified," the Associated Press has a story suggesting that the U.S.'s air base in Kyrgyzstan, Manas, may be imperiled:
Azymbek Beknazarov — a deputy head of the interim government that came to power last week after a bloody uprising — told the AP that Washington compromised its position on promoting democracy in Kyrgyzstan so as not to put the strategic Manas transit center under threat of closure.
"All the Americans care about is that the military base stays," Beknazarov said. "They forgot about freedom, about democratic values. They forgot about Kyrgyzstan — they are only looking at their military base."
"In my opinion, the Manas center's presence is not justified," he said.
Now, it's hard to know what to make of that. The whole import of his quote turns on one word: "unjustified," which isn't really the clearest word you might use. In addition, we don't know much about the context of the quote, or his role in the government. Still, suggests that perhaps there is at least some internal debate among the leaders of Kyrgyzstan about what to do with Manas.
As we've discussed here before, the U.S. air base in Kyrgyzstan is likely to stay, but the terms might change. Kyrgyzstan's new government has said it wants to review the terms, but the U.S. might be doing the same. Reports the Washington Post:
A House panel conducting a preliminary investigation into U.S. contracting in Afghanistanhas turned its focus on what its chairman called Tuesday the "unexplained relationships" between the families of two Kyrgyzstan presidents and fuel supplies to a key U.S. air base there.
"Two overthrows of the government there have been linked to corrupt dealings at Manas air base," said Rep. John F. Tierney (D-Mass.), chairman of the national security subcommittee of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. "That's what we are looking into."
Should be juicy stuff. Will try to keep you posted...
On Monday, the US Embassy in Bishkek put out a press release saying that "The Transit Center at Manas has resumed normal operations. Refueling operations continue as usual and the transit of troops has resumed."
Even before we had any idea what was going on in Kyrgyzstan, there was a lot of hand-wringing yesterday over the status of the Manas Air Base/Transit Center after the "revolution" that seems to have taken place there. That has tamped down a bit, once it emerged that Roza Otunbayeva, the new leader of the caretaker government, said that Manas would be unaffected.
This is what Iran is claiming. On Tuesday, Abdulmalak Rigi, the leader of the Sunni Muslim militant group Jundullah, which has been fighting Iran for years, was arrested by Iranian authorities.
There were conflicting stories about the circumstances of Rigi's arrest, but one was that he was en route from Dubai to Kyrgyzstan for a meeting with a "high-ranking American" at Manas Transit Center, where they were to discuss American support, including a base in Afghanistan near the Iranian border, weapons and training. And this is what he said in his televised confession on Friday:
“They told me that they have a base in Kyrgyzstan named Manas, near Bishkek. And that a high-ranking person was coming to meet me and when such high-ranking people come, Emirates intelligence would take them under observation. But in Bishkek, this high-ranking American person could come and we could reach agreement on making the proper contacts."
