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Deal on transit route

MOSCOW: The United States and Kyrgyzstan have reached agreement on opening a transit facility for Afghanistan-bound non-military supplies at the site of the Pentagon airbase at Manas airport.

Kyrgyzstan earlier this year ordered the Americans to leave by mid-August the Manas airbase set up in 2001. Under the new agreement, the Pentagon will continue to use Manas airport as a “centre of transit shipments” to Afghanistan, but only for non-lethal cargo. The facility will also be stripped of the exterritorial status the airbase had.

The Kyrgyz Parliament’s defence committee backed the deal on Tuesday and sent it to the full House for a vote. The U.S. agreed to increase its annual rent for the use of Manas from less than $20 million to $60 million, Foreign Minister Kadyrbek Sarbaev told the committee.

Washington will also spend $63 million to upgrade the airport and give $50 million for various Kyrgyz government programmes. Russia indicated its support for the deal. A Foreign Ministry spokesman in Moscow said it was Kyrgyzstan’s sovereign right to conclude the transit agreement with the U.S. He added that Moscow expects the Kyrgyz government to honour its pledge to shut down the Manas airbase.

The new deal is in line with Moscow’s policy of denying Washington a military foothold in Central Asia, while supporting the U.S.-led anti-Taliban operations Afghanistan. .

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