Kyrgyzstan played a “dirty trick” in deciding to let the US keep using an airbase that Moscow wanted closed, a source in the Russian foreign ministry was quoted as saying yesterday.
The unnamed source, speaking to the Kommersant daily newspaper, vowed that Russia would make a “corresponding response” to the Central Asian country’s decision on the Manas airbase.
On Tuesday, Kyrgyzstan announced it had signed an agreement with the US allowing US personnel to keep using the airbase as a “transit center” for the transport of non-lethal military goods to Afghanistan.
The agreement effectively reversed an earlier decision in which Kyrgyzstan had ordered the Manas airbase to close — a decision that was widely believed to have been made under Russian pressure.
“The news about the preservation of the base was an extremely unpleasant surprise for us. We did not anticipate such a dirty trick,” the foreign ministry source told Kommersant.
The source said that Russia would give a “corresponding response” and dismissed the base’s new description as a “transit center,” saying that Manas would essentially remain a US military base.
“Renaming the base a center is a cosmetic alteration. The real nature of the US military presence in Central Asia has not changed, which goes against the interests of Russia and our agreements with the Kyrgyz government,” the source said.
The comments were much harsher than Russia’s official reaction, which said Kyrgyzstan had the “sovereign right” to make such a decision.
Manas airbase is used to ferry tens of thousands of troops in and out of Afghanistan each year and also hosts planes used for the mid-air refueling of combat aircraft.
Its loss would have been a blow to coalition military efforts in Afghanistan at a time when US President Barack Obama is seeking to step up the campaign against the Taliban.
Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev announced the decision to close the base in February during a visit to Moscow — on the same day that Russia unveiled a generous aid package to his impoverished country.
In the package, Russia agreed to settle an estimated US$180 million debt owed by Bishkek to Moscow, extend Kyrgyzstan a grant worth US$150 million, and loan it US$2 billion more, news agencies reported at the time. Russia has consistently denied playing any role in Kyrgyzstan’s decision to close the base. But the base’s presence had long irritated Moscow, which sees it as an intrusion into its former Soviet domains in Central Asia.
START TALKS
Meanwhile, the US said on Tuesday it has made progress in its negotiations with Russia toward forging a successor to a Cold War-era treaty to cut nuclear weapons arsenals.
State Department spokesman Ian Kelly recalled that both Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev want “significant reductions” in such arsenals under a new Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START).
“That’s what each ... country is working towards. I think that we’ve made progress in the talks that we’ve ... had so far,” Kelly told reporters without elaborating.
US and Russian negotiators met in Geneva on Tuesday as part of the preliminary START negotiations — their third and last scheduled round of talks before a summit between their presidents next month.
Kelly also played down differences with Russia over its demands that a new START treaty address Moscow’s opposition to US plans for a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic, countries that were once under Soviet influence.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to