Kyrgyzstan MPs approve closure of US air base
The Kyrgyz parliament voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to close a US military base on its territory that serves as a key supply route for coalition forces in neighbouring Afghanistan.
The vote to close the US air base at Manas easily passed through parliament, with 78 out of a total 81 lawmakers present voting for the closure. One MP voted against and two abstained.
Ruling Ak Zhol party MP Zayinidin Kurmanov said after the vote that the legislation must now be signed by President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, whose announcement last month of the base's closure shocked Washington.
"After that Bishkek should send a note by the ministry of foreign affairs to the American side and within the next 180 days the United States must remove its base from the territory of Kyrgyzstan," the lawmaker said.
Despite its importance, the vote proceeded with little fanfare with lawmakers then moving on to their next deliberations.
"The Kyrgyz Republic has the complete legal right to unilaterally withdraw from the agreement with the United States over the base," MP Avtandil Arabaev, also from the dominant Ak Zhol, said ahead of the vote.
"It is a very correct and timely decision and in the interests of a sovereign Kyrgyzstan. I support the cancellation of this document," he said.
The closure of the base would further strain coalition supply lines at a time when US President Barack Obama is planning to nearly double the 36,000-strong force in increasingly-unstable Afghanistan.
The United States and Nato had both expressed disappointment over the base's closure and urged the Kyrgyz authorities to change their minds.
Bakiyev has said the ex-Soviet Central Asian state is closing the base because the United States refused to pay fair market prices for its use.
The announcement of the closure came after Russia offered more than two billion dollars in aid. But the government has insisted that Moscow did not set the closure of Manas as a condition for the aid.
The Manas base, operated by about 1,000 troops including small French and Spanish contingents, was set up to support coalition forces fighting to oust the Taliban in Afghanistan in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
Since the announcement by Bishkek, both Russia and Tajikistan have offered their territory for the transit of non-lethal supplies to Nato and US forces in Afghanistan.
General David Petraeus travelled to Uzbekistan on Tuesday to meet President Islam Karimov and discuss regional security, widely interpreted as a sign the United States was seeking to use the country for transit to Afghanistan.
Tashkent closed a US air base that helped serve troops stationed in Afghanistan in 2005, following EU and US criticism over the Uzbek government's handling of an armed uprising in the city of Andijan.
Relations between Washington and Tashkent have warmed again recently and the US army is again using Uzbekistan as a stop-off point for military operations in Afghanistan.
Comments