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No need to rush US base withdrawal from Central Asia - CIS sec chief

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  • No need to rush US base withdrawal from Central Asia - CIS sec chief

    No need to rush US base withdrawal from Central Asia - CIS security chief

    ITAR-TASS news agency, Moscow
    27 Jul 05


    The Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) should be more
    proactive when a crisis breaks out in one of its member-states,
    Russian ITAR-TASS news agency quoted CSTO secretary-general Nikolay
    Bordyuzha as saying in connection with the recent turmoil in
    Kyrgyzstan. Bordyuzha said this addressing reporters at the United
    Nations headquarters in New York on 26 July, ITAR-TASS reported on 27
    July.

    "The CSTO could have employed political rather than military means to
    prevent the Kyrgyz political struggle from pouring out into the
    streets, from the events developing according to a scenario which
    ended as looting and violence," the agency quoted Bordyuzha as
    saying. "This is what we could have done. We could not and should not
    have got involved in the internal political struggle or tried to
    influence it or suppress opposition forces. This is not our business,"
    he added.

    Bordyuzha said that the CSTO, which is made up of Armenia, Belarus,
    Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia and Tajikistan, was created to counter
    outside threats. "We have drawn conclusions from the Kyrgyz
    events. And in my opinion the conclusions are that we should become
    more active and assertive when we see the situation exacerbate in one
    of the states," ITAR-TASS quoted him as saying.

    Bordyuzha also spoke against a hasty decision on the presence of US
    military bases in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan, ITAR-TASS said in a later
    report on 27 July.

    "Of course we need to be deciding on the time-frame for the bases'
    presence and the expediency of using them, but I do not think this
    needs to be done with undue haste and immediately," Bordyuzha told
    reporters. He said it was necessary to define the status of US bases
    as "temporary bodies for the period of the active phase of the
    antiterrorist operation in Afghanistan". "As the situation stabilizes,
    and it really is stabilizing, the issue of the bases' withdrawal will
    need to be considered," ITAR-TASS quoted Bordyuzha as saying.

    From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
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