BISHKEK, KYRGYZSTAN | Kyrgyzstan’s president-elect said Tuesday that the U.S. air base needs to close by 2014 because its presence on Kyrgyz soil puts this former Soviet nation at risk of retaliatory strikes from those in conflict with the United States.
Almazbek Atambayev, who won more than 60 percent of ballots in Sunday’s vote, said Kyrgyzstan will honor a contract allowing the U.S. lease of the base at Manas through mid-2014.
The United States has used Manas, which is situated within the country’s main civilian airport, as a key logistical hub for operations in nearby Afghanistan since 2001.
“We know that the United States is often engaged in conflict. First in Iraq, then in Afghanistan, and now relations are tense with Iran,” Mr. Atambayev said. “I would not want for one of these countries to launch a retaliatory strike on the military base.”
The base is the subject of frequently extravagant rumors among local residents and politicians, who maintain that fuel dumps by U.S. planes devastate crops and cause illnesses.
U.S. military officials always have strenuously denied such claims and say they make every effort to minimize their impact on the area surrounding the base.
Manas remains the only U.S. military outpost in the volatile region after the eviction of another U.S. base from authoritarian Uzbekistan in 2005 over Washington’s criticism of a brutal crackdown on protesters by Uzbek government forces.
Mr. Atambayev and other Kyrgyz officials have made similar warnings in the past, saying that the U.S. base must close by 2014.
Asked to comment on Mr. Atambayev’s statement Tuesday, the base spokesman, Air Force Maj. Bob Everdeen, said that beyond the current term of the lease agreement “we wouldn’t speculate on the future.”
The presence of the U.S. base has vexed Moscow, which views Kyrgyzstan as part of its traditional sphere of influence.
Russia also has a military base in the Central Asian nation on China’s mountainous western fringes.
Mr. Atambayev, whose recent overtures to Moscow indicate he will pursue an explicitly pro-Russian line, did not say anything about that base.
Kyrgyzstan’s economic fortunes are inextricably linked with Russia, where about 500,000 Kyrgyz migrant workers reside, and Mr. Atambayev has worked hard to deepen those ties.
The country was on a state of high alert ahead of the elections amid fears that it could stoke up interregional tensions, but the vote proceeded largely without disturbances.
By garnering more than 50 percent of the ballots, Mr. Atambayev, a northerner, avoided a runoff that would have pitted him against one of his two rivals from the south - Adakhan Madumarov and Kamchibek Tashiyev.
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