Kyrgyzstan to close US airbase in a matter of days

U.S. Central Command chief General David Petraeus, visiting Tajikistan as part of a regional tour that also takes him to Kyrgyzstan this weekend, said the United States had no plans to stop using the airbase.

"We look forward to discussing the future of the base there and we certainly have no plans to change anything frankly," he was quoted as telling reporters by Reuters.

Washington set up the base, now home to more than 1,000 military personnel, in ex-Soviet Kyrgyzstan in 2001 after the start of the U.S.-led military campaign in Afghanistan.

Earlier on Saturday, a senior Kyrgyz official told AFP that Kyrgyzstan will order the closure of a US military airbase used to support operations in Afghanistan "in a matter of days" in exchange for a loan from Russia.

Russia, which also operates a military airbase in Kyrgyzstan, saw the arrival of U.S. forces as a Washington attempt to squeeze Russian influence in the ex-Soviet region.

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"The presidential decree on the annulment of the agreement with the United States is already prepared. In a matter of days it will be published in the Kyrgyz media," the official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The official said Russia had urged Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev to announce the closure of the base in exchange for financial help to the cash-strapped Central Asian nation, AFP reported.

Russian media have separately reported that Bakiyev would announce the closure of the U.S. base ahead of his planned visit to Moscow next month. The Kyrgyz government has not officially commented on the matter.

Russian officials have discussed extending Kyrgyzstan a 300-million-dollar (225-million-euro) loan as well as 1.7 billion dollars of investment in the energy sector of the ex-Soviet republic, the report added.

"In exchange for such a large loan the Kremlin asked Bakiyev to voice the decision about the pull-out of the US airbase from Kyrgyzstan before his official visit to Moscow," the official said.

Bakiyev's press service has said he will visit Moscow on February 3.

Russia has sought the closure of the base, which is a symbol of US influence in post-Soviet Central Asia, a region long dominated by Moscow.

Kyrgyz officials said in December that they were preparing to close the base, located at Manas outside the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, but the United States denied that there were any plans to do so.

The base is home to about 1,200 foreign military personnel, mainly from the United States, and acts as a staging post for operations in Afghanistan, located to the south.

It was opened after the September 11, 2001 attacks to support US-led operations in Afghanistan.

In recent months there have been a number of street demonstrations demanding the closure of the base, which is next to the country’s main international airport.

There have been tensions with the local population. A US guard shot dead a Kyrgyz truck driver in 2006 in what US officials said was self-defense.