Unconfirmed reports are already circulating of U.S. military planes landing outside the Uzbek capital Tashkent and even in southern Tajikistan. And at a news conference today, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbaev indicated the U.S. military may be allowed access to that country's air bases as well:
Prague, 14 September 2001 (RFE/RL) -- The chorus of official support for the United States coming from Central Asia masks unease among the region's leaders and people about the consequences of possible military action against Afghanistan.
Prague, 12 September 2001 (RFE/RL) -- Armed with perhaps little more than knives, terrorists yesterday hijacked four planes, turning three of them into bombs that struck at the heart of the U.S. commercial and defense systems. Thousands of lives are feared to have been lost.
Tajik Defense Minister Sherali Khairulloev and Russian Defense Minister Igor Sergeev discussed bilateral military cooperation in addition to Central Asian regional security and the instability created by the situation in Afghanistan.
As President Askar Akayev prepares for his inauguration at a joint parliamentary session December 9, many in Kyrgyzstan are pessimistic about the government's capacity to address a variety of socio-economic issues, including worsening living conditions, corruption and the exodus of non-Kyrgyz citizens.
Incumbent leader Askar Akayev appears to have handily defeated five rivals in gaining another five-year term as Kyrgyzstan's president. However, opposition leaders and international organizations have voiced complaints about election irregularities.
The assassination attempt came just two days before the devastating terrorist attacks on New York and Washington. U.S. President George W. Bush is vowing to find and punish not only the perpetrators of those attacks but states or groups that assisted them in any way.
Azerbaijan has through the last decade been mainly associated with two things: oil and unresolved, historical ethnic conflicts. Russia on the one side and the United States and Turkey on the other are competing for a stake in the exploitation and transport of the rich oil and gas reserves in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan.
When she left Tashkent at the end of her tour, Ferrero-Waldner knew it would not be possible to convene the conference this year. The presidents of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan said they prefer to handle the problem on a bilateral basis and rejected the multilateral approach proposed by the OSCE. Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, however, favor the conference.
