LONDON, Jan 31: Britain has approached China in a bid to find an air base in a region close to Afghanistan for future deployments of troops, supplies and humanitarian aid there, The Times reported on Thursday.
The British daily called it “an unprecedented move” and quoted a Ministry of Defence official as saying: “The Chinese did not turn us down.”
A defence ministry spokesman told AFP: “We are approaching various potential locations in which we could have forward-mounting bases. We are looking at various options.”
Other options for such bases include Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, three former Soviet republics that border China to the north, The Times said.
If approval were given from Beijing, it would be the first time that British military aircraft have flown into China for operational reasons since the 1940s, during the World War II.
Then, British aircraft used to fly from Burma into western China to refuel. But even then there was no British base in China, The Times said.
The paper said the two available air bases in Afghanistan, Kabul International Airport and Bagram airfield, north of the capital, are overused.
Their runways are crumbling and the British-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in the country is having to fly in cement to fill up the cracks, added The Times, a right-of-centre broadsheet.—AFP
