Kyrgyz Parliament Knocks Base from under USA
// Bishkek will denounce the agreement on the presence of US troops
Kyrgyz parliament demanded yesterday that terms for keeping US military base in Manas airport should be reconsidered, and that US servicemen should be deprived of their immunity. The reason is the murder of Kyrgyz citizen Alexander Ivanov committed by a US Air Force serviceman on December 6. However, Bishkek admits that it was Moscow that pushed Kyrgyz authorities to speak strong language.
Kyrgyz authorities suggested denouncing the intergovernmental agreement with the U.S. of 2001, according to which there is a US aviation base in Bishkek’s airport Manas, after the murder of a Kyrgyz citizen by a US Air Force sergeant.
“The event [the murder] caused the negative perception of US image with Kyrgyz people. Our nation is strongly against not just the fact of incidents around the aviation base, but against the fact that the U.S. prefers procrastination, and sometimes ignores Kyrgyzstan’s demands altogether,” reads the resolution prepared by the country’s authorities.
The resolution commissions Kyrgyz government with “demanding that US government surrender US Air Force serviceman Zachary Hatfield of Manas aviation base to the law-enforcing officials of Kyrgyzstan, so that they carry out necessary investigation procedures for the criminal case”. This demand, however, contradicts to Bishkek-Washington bilateral agreement according to which US servicemen in Kyrgyzstan have legal immunity.
Difficulties with the base in Manas airport arose back in summer 2005, after the SCO summit, where Russia and China pushed all member states to call for withdrawing US troops from the region, saying that the situation in Afghanistan is now stable, and there is no need for keeping US bases in Central Asia.
Deputies of Kyrgyz parliament said yesterday, after the resolution was ratified, that the government will definitely carry it out. Besides, some sources added that Moscow has been lobbying the demand to ask Americans to withdraw for a long time already.
Bek Orozaliev, Bishkek; Mikhail Zygar
All the Article in Russian as of Dec. 16, 2006
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