US mulls Uzbek alternative

Hurriyet Daily News with wires

The United States is considering resumption of military cooperation with authoritarian Uzbekistan as part of backup planning for the potential loss of a nearby air hub for troops and supplies in the widening Afghanistan war, U.S. officials said.

As the Kyrgyz government's said its decision to order the closure of a U.S. base that serves as a vital route for supplies to Afghanistan is "final," another Central Asian country, Tajikistan, said it was ready to allow U.S. and NATO supplies for Afghanistan to transit across its territory. Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon said after a meeting with the U.S. ambassador that his country was ready to allow supplies including construction materials, medicines, fuel and water to transit across its soil by road.

U.S. defense officials told the Associated Press they were examining options for supply routes through a semicircle of nations from Central Asia to the Persian Gulf that could be used in place of strategic Manas Air Base in the former Soviet republic of Kyrgyzstan. Uzbekistan, a hard-line former Soviet satellite with rigid economic controls, is a surprise contender because diplomatic relations between the U.S. and Uzbekistan are rocky at best. After a brief 1990s rapprochement with the U.S. Uzbeks expelled American forces from a base there in 2005, and the two nations have traded accusations ever since.

Asked about the Kyrgyz situation in an appearance at the State Department, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said it was troubling but would not impede U.S. plans to expand its military presence in Afghanistan. But, Kyrgyzstan said it would not reverse its decision to close a key U.S. air base on its territory that is key to American and NATO operations in Afghanistan. "The government of Kyrgyzstan has taken its final decision about the closure of the American airbase," gov’t spokesman told Agence France-Presse.