BISHKEK, July 26: Kyrgyzstan’s newly elected leaders on Tuesday assured US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld of continued US access to an air base here as long as Afghanistan remains unstable. Rumsfeld won similar assurances of continued support from leaders in Tajikistan during a visit later in the day to Dushanbe.

“The air base at Manas will stay as long as the situation in Afghanistan requires,” Kyrgyz Defence Minister General Major Ismail Isakov said through an interpreter at a news conference with Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld’s meetings here followed a call earlier this month for a timetable on the withdrawal of US forces from bases in the region by Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, China and Russia.

After the talks with Kyrgyz president-elect Kurmanbek Bakiyev, Rumsfeld flew to Tajikistan which, like Kyrgyzstan, signed the statement by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization on the US military presence in Central Asia. “I wouldn’t pack your bags just yet,” Rumsfeld told US troops on the tarmac at Manas air base just before boarding his flight to Dushanbe.

“They understand that what we’re doing in Afghanistan is really important,” he said. “I have every reason to believe that the relationship will continue in an orderly way.” About 1,000 US troops and a small Spanish contingent are stationed at Manas, a base for refuelling aircraft and a way station for military aircraft carrying supplies to US and Nato forces in Afghanistan.

Under the terms of the US agreement with Kyrgyzstan, either party must give 180 days’ notice to halt the US air operations at the base. The United States also uses a base in Uzbekistan and has emergency landing and over flight agreements with Tajikistan.

In Dushanbe, Foreign Minister Talbak Nazarov said “Tajikistan has been and will continue to observe all these international commitments.”

“Our two countries are solid partners in the global struggle against extremism and in promoting peace and stability in Afghanistan,” Rumsfeld said at a news conference with Nazarov.

Rumsfeld declined to comment on the assurances he received in Bishkek, but when asked whether US access to bases in the region was threatened he said, “The answer I would say is no.”

“We have good arrangements with a number of countries in this part of the world that have been fashioned over time and have proved to be mutually beneficial,” he said.

In Bishkek, Isakov said the presence of US forces at Manas “fully depends on the situation in Afghanistan.”

“Once there is stabilization there will be no need for them. But now I agree with Mister Secretary, who mentioned that Afghanistan is far from stable,” he said.

Rumsfeld and General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have attributed the calls for a withdrawal timetable to pressure from Russia and China. Russia has announced that it plans to increase its military presence in Kyrgyzstan.

Uzbekistan, however, curtailed US air operations at its Karshi-Khanabad base after the United States and Europe voiced outrage over reports that Uzbek troops killed hundreds of demonstrators on May 13 in the city of Andijan.

Uzbek President Islam Karimov, a close US ally during the Afghan war, has refused US and European calls for an independent outside investigation into the incident.

Rumsfeld would not comment on the incident or say how the United States intends to respond.

“I wasn’t there. I have no personal knowledge of it other than published reports we’ve all seen,” he said of the Andijan crackdown.

“We will do whatever the laws of the United States and the president of the United States decides,” he said. “And I should add the government of Uzbekistan. It is a bilateral relationship.”

In meetings here, Rumsfeld congratulated Kyrgyzstan’s leaders for national elections on July 10 that he said were widely recognized as “free and fair.” The previous government was toppled by massive demonstrations in March.

Rumsfeld told Bakiyev “your determination to proceed on a democratic path and to fight corruption is a direction that will be well received by the world”.—AFP