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  • Uzbekistan Asks U.S. To Close Air Base

    UZBEKISTAN ASKS U.S. TO CLOSE AIR BASE
    by Vladimir Socor

    Eurasia Daily Monitor -- The Jamestown Foundation
    Tuesday, August 2, 2005 -- Volume 2, Issue 150

    On July 29, Uzbekistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs delivered a note
    to the U.S. Embassy in Tashkent, asking the United States to vacate
    the Karshi-Khanabad air base, withdraw the troops and materiel from
    Uzbekistan, and terminate the 2001 bilateral agreement within 180
    days. The document did not state the reasons for this demand.

    The six-month deadline is broadly consistent with the timeframe
    suggested by Russian President Vladimir Putin's top foreign policy
    adviser, Sergei Prikhodko, at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization's
    (SCO) July 5 summit, which orchestrated this anti-U.S. move.
    Prikhodko declared, "Several months, up to a year and a half" would
    be an adequate deadline for the U.S.-led coalition to close its bases
    in Central Asian countries (see EDM, July 6).

    Some Russian officials were quick to gloat. Defense Minister Sergei
    Ivanov urged the United States sarcastically "to make up its mind:
    how many years will the war in Afghanistan go on: 20, 30, or 250
    years?" Professing to link the American military presence in Central
    Asia solely to the operations in Afghanistan ("There is no other
    reason, and none would be acceptable"), Ivanov portrayed that presence
    as both ineffective and unnecessary: "There are no active combat
    operations in Afghanistan, while the Taliban control a large part of
    the country. Terrorist threats continue to emanate from Afghanistan,
    but the Taliban don't even bother to hide because no one pursues
    them. The narcotics business keeps growing because no one lifts a
    finger to deal with it." Sergei Karaganov, chairman of the Foreign
    Policy and Defense Council, echoed Ivanov's sarcasm by predicting,
    "It is probably a matter of several centuries yet before Afghanistan
    fully recovers. But the situation is much better there now, so the
    bases [in Central Asia] have served their purpose, the Americans can
    do without the bases." Federation Council chairman Sergei Mironov,
    praising Tashkent's anti-U.S. move, also distorted the U.S. position:
    "The Uzbek authorities took an absolutely right and logical step. The
    United States has said several times that the anti-terrorist operation
    in Afghanistan has ended, thus it is time for U.S. forces to leave
    Uzbekistan" (Interfax, July 28, 29; Russian Television Channel One,
    July 30; RIA-Novosti, August 1).

    The Uzbek "eviction notice," as some commentators describe it perhaps
    somewhat prematurely, was not, however, a foregone conclusion,
    and might not necessarily be the final word. Even as the Uzbek-U.S.
    political miscommunication had deepened through the Kyrgyz upheaval
    and the Andijan violence, and Tashkent placed restrictions on the use
    of the Karshi-Khanabad base, Uzbek authorities did not seem intent
    on asking the U.S. military to leave the country. After the July
    5 SCO summit, state-controlled Uzbek media carried over-dramatized
    commentaries on alleged economic and ecological costs to Uzbekistan,
    and inconvenience to local inhabitants, caused by the American air
    base. But the commentaries stopped short of calling for closure of
    the base. Rather, they seemed intended, however clumsily, to set the
    stage for complete fulfillment, or perhaps re-negotiation, of some
    of the terms of the 2001 and 2002 bilateral agreements.

    The July 29 note came the day after the United States, working with
    the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees office in Bishkek,
    arranged the airlift from Kyrgyzstan to Romania of 439 Uzbeks who had
    fled from Andijan. The group included some escaped criminals and some
    suspected rebels who were wanted for questioning by Uzbek authorities
    as part of the investigation into the Andijan violence. Nevertheless,
    U.S. officials strongly pressured Kyrgyzstan to allow the evacuation
    of the entire group. Thus, Tashkent's "eviction notice" seems to be
    an instant reaction to that move.

    At this juncture, however, President Islam Karimov may still be keeping
    the options open for both sides. As of August 1, Tashkent had not
    announced the base-closure demand in the Uzbek media. The note was
    delivered to the U.S. Embassy by an Uzbek courier, not by the usual
    mode of delivery through government officials, and thus decreasing the
    document's weight. Moreover, the Uzbek Ministry of Foreign Affairs'
    protest note against the U.S.-arranged evacuation of Uzbek suspects
    from Kyrgyzstan, published on August 1, stopped carefully short of
    naming the United States. Such hints seem calculated to suggest that
    Karimov prefers to avoid a rupture in the security relationship at
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