BISHKEK, April 19: Kyrgyzstan warned the United States on Wednesday that it may close a vital US military base in the Central Asian state unless Washington agrees to a substantial increase in rent for the facility.

“Kyrgyzstan maintains its right to put an end to the accord of Dec 4, 2001, in the event that for certain reasons the negotiation process hasn’t been concluded by June 1, 2006,” President Kurmanbek Bakiyev said in a televised speech, referring to an existing agreement on use of the base.

The air base had been kept open despite ‘certain fears’ on the part of Kyrgyzstan’s regional partners, Mr Bakiyev emphasised, in an apparent reference to the traditional power broker in the region, Russia.

This impoverished nation has been negotiating with the United States since last summer on raising the fees it is paid for use of the base near the capital Bishkek, which is used as a staging post for operations in Afghanistan.

The base became Washington’s main military foothold in ex-Soviet Central Asia after neighbouring Uzbekistan closed another US base in that country last November.

Kyrgyzstan, like Uzbekistan, invited the United States to open the base to support the US-led overthrow of the Taliban leadership in 2001.

But the Kyrgyz air base lies close to another that Russia opened in Kyrgyzstan a few months later, reflecting tensions between Washington and Moscow over the US presence in an area Russia has long considered its sphere of influence.

In February, Mr Bakiyev told a Russian newspaper he was seeking a major increase in the amount paid for use of the US base, to 207 million dollars annually.

Kyrgyz authorities say that although the country received 60 million dollars over the first four years of the base’s use, all but two million dollars went to enterprises linked to the family of former president Askar Akayev, who was ousted in an uprising last spring.

Since the opening of the Russian and US bases in Kyrgyzstan the government here has been engaged in a delicate balancing act to try to satisfy the two outside powers.

Last July a six-nation security bloc, led by Moscow and Beijing, the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation, called for a deadline to be set for the closure of US bases in Central Asia. —AFP