Kyrgyz Govt Prepares To Shut U.S. Base

U.S. military personnel will be given 180 days to close operations and leave once the final decision is made.

Kyrgyzstan's government asked parliament on Wednesday to approve the closure of a U.S. military air base which supplies U.S.-led troops fighting in Afghanistan.

The decision by the Central Asian state, a former Soviet republic and a traditional Russian ally, sets a tough challenge for new U.S. President Barack Obama as he plans to send additional troops to Afghanistan.

But Moscow said it would be flexible to U.S. requests to transit supplies across Russia. It gave no details.

The Manas base is an important staging post for the U.S.-led military campaign against the Taliban and becomes more so as Washington seeks to reinforce supply routes that bypass Pakistan, where supply convoys face security risks.

Analysts said the move could be a signal to Obama that Moscow wants to ensure it is consulted in any diplomatic decisions in a region where it has traditional influence but the United States has sought to increase its presence.

"I have a feeling Russia wants to offer a new format for cooperation, in which Russia will speak on behalf of the region in contacts with the United States," said Arkady Dubnov, an independent analyst.

"Bargaining could be conducted on this footing."

Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev said the base would be shut after he secured Russian financial aid at talks in Moscow on Tuesday.

Adakhan Madumarov, secretary of the Kyrgyz Security Council, said in Moscow the U.S. military would be given 180 days to close its operations and leave once the two sides had exchanged formal diplomatic notes outlining the intention.

Moscow denied any connection between the $2 billion package to combat an economic crisis -- the equivalent of about half of Kyrgyzstan's gross domestic product -- and Bishkek's decision.

"The closure of the base is a sovereign decision," Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said after a summit with post-Soviet allies in the Kremlin. "It was taken by the Kyrgyz president."

U.S. SUPPLY ROUTES

Closing Washington's only military outpost in Central Asia would pose a challenge for U.S. supply lines in the region, particularly after militants severed the main route into Afghanistan by blowing up a bridge in Pakistan this week.

State Department spokesman Robert Wood said Washington had still not received any formal communication over the closure of the base and that discussions were continuing with Kyrgyzstan. He said the United States was also engaging with Russia, but did not provide details.

NATO said it would be "of concern" if Russia were found to have had a role in Kyrgyzstan's decision to close the base.

The Pentagon said "Kyrgyzstan's been a good ally".

"We certainly appreciate the arrangement that we have with them right now," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said.

"The base does contribute to the security and stability of Central Asia and Afghanistan. It does provide us with logistic and refuelling to international forces in Afghanistan."

About 15,000 people and 500 tonnes of cargo go through the base every month, he said. He could not say what proportion of the total flow into Afghanistan that represented.

U.S. officials said while the Manas base was important, any decision to close it would not halt operations in Afghanistan.

The United States has 32,000 troops in Afghanistan and U.S. officials have said the planned build-up could grow to include as many as 30,000 troops over the next 12 to 18 months.

Many in Kyrgyzstan have criticised the presence of U.S. troops, prompting Washington to explore possibilities in other parts of Central Asia including Uzbekistan which evicted U.S. troops in 2005. Ties have eased since then.

Moscow, which operates its own airbase in Kyrgyzstan a few dozen kilometres away from Manas, has been irritated by Manas's existence and has put pressure on Kyrgyzstan to close it, though on Wednesday said it would offer the U.S. support.

"We positively reacted to the request of the United States for the transit through Russia of goods and materials to Afghanistan," Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin told reporters.

"We will be flexible in many other ways which will support our joint success in Afghanistan."

Medvedev said Moscow and its allies within the post-Soviet Collective Security Treaty Organisation (ODKB) would create an elite "rapid reaction force" to counter terrorism, crime and "foreign aggression" in the region.

"Russia and other ODKB nations, (particularly) Central Asian countries, are ready for a fully fledged, comprehensive cooperation with the United States and other coalition nations in fighting terrorism in the region," he said.

Business appeared to go on as usual at the airbase, home to more than 1,000 U.S. military personnel.

Servicemen refused to talk to reporters as they verified registration plates on vehicles entering the base.

Although many Kyrgyz have mixed feelings about the presence of U.S. troops, particularly after a U.S. airman shot dead a Kyrgyz man in 2006, Bakiyev's critics said the nation could ill-afford to lose such an important ally as Washington.