UZBEKISTAN ASKS U.S. TO CLOSE AIR BASE
by Vladimir Socor
Eurasia Daily Monitor — The Jamestown Foundation
Tuesday, August 2, 2005 — Volume 2, Issue 150
On July 29, Uzbekistan’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs delivered a note
to the U.S. Embassy in Tashkent, asking the United States to vacate
the Karshi-Khanabad air base, withdraw the troops and materiel from
Uzbekistan, and terminate the 2001 bilateral agreement within 180
days. The document did not state the reasons for this demand.
The six-month deadline is broadly consistent with the timeframe
suggested by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s top foreign policy
adviser, Sergei Prikhodko, at the Shanghai Cooperation Organization’s
(SCO) July 5 summit, which orchestrated this anti-U.S. move.
Prikhodko declared, “Several months, up to a year and a half” would
be an adequate deadline for the U.S.-led coalition to close its bases
in Central Asian countries (see EDM, July 6).
Some Russian officials were quick to gloat. Defense Minister Sergei
Ivanov urged the United States sarcastically “to make up its mind:
how many years will the war in Afghanistan go on: 20, 30, or 250
years?” Professing to link the American military presence in Central
Asia solely to the operations in Afghanistan (“There is no other
reason, and none would be acceptable”), Ivanov portrayed that presence
as both ineffective and unnecessary: “There are no active combat
operations in Afghanistan, while the Taliban control a large part of
the country. Terrorist threats continue to emanate from Afghanistan,
but the Taliban don’t even bother to hide because no one pursues
them. The narcotics business keeps growing because no one lifts a
finger to deal with it.” Sergei Karaganov, chairman of the Foreign
Policy and Defense Council, echoed Ivanov’s sarcasm by predicting,
“It is probably a matter of several centuries yet before Afghanistan
fully recovers. But the situation is much better there now, so the
bases [in Central Asia] have served their purpose, the Americans can
do without the bases.” Federation Council chairman Sergei Mironov,
praising Tashkent’s anti-U.S. move, also distorted the U.S. position:
“The Uzbek authorities took an absolutely right and logical step. The
United States has said several times that the anti-terrorist operation
in Afghanistan has ended, thus it is time for U.S. forces to leave
Uzbekistan” (Interfax, July 28, 29; Russian Television Channel One,
July 30; RIA-Novosti, August 1).
The Uzbek “eviction notice,” as some commentators describe it perhaps
somewhat prematurely, was not, however, a foregone conclusion,
and might not necessarily be the final word. Even as the Uzbek-U.S.
political miscommunication had deepened through the Kyrgyz upheaval
and the Andijan violence, and Tashkent placed restrictions on the use
of the Karshi-Khanabad base, Uzbek authorities did not seem intent
on asking the U.S. military to leave the country. After the July
5 SCO summit, state-controlled Uzbek media carried over-dramatized
commentaries on alleged economic and ecological costs to Uzbekistan,
and inconvenience to local inhabitants, caused by the American air
base. But the commentaries stopped short of calling for closure of
the base. Rather, they seemed intended, however clumsily, to set the
stage for complete fulfillment, or perhaps re-negotiation, of some
of the terms of the 2001 and 2002 bilateral agreements.
The July 29 note came the day after the United States, working with
the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees office in Bishkek,
arranged the airlift from Kyrgyzstan to Romania of 439 Uzbeks who had
fled from Andijan. The group included some escaped criminals and some
suspected rebels who were wanted for questioning by Uzbek authorities
as part of the investigation into the Andijan violence. Nevertheless,
U.S. officials strongly pressured Kyrgyzstan to allow the evacuation
of the entire group. Thus, Tashkent’s “eviction notice” seems to be
an instant reaction to that move.
At this juncture, however, President Islam Karimov may still be keeping
the options open for both sides. As of August 1, Tashkent had not
announced the base-closure demand in the Uzbek media. The note was
delivered to the U.S. Embassy by an Uzbek courier, not by the usual
mode of delivery through government officials, and thus decreasing the
document’s weight. Moreover, the Uzbek Ministry of Foreign Affairs’
protest note against the U.S.-arranged evacuation of Uzbek suspects
from Kyrgyzstan, published on August 1, stopped carefully short of
naming the United States. Such hints seem calculated to suggest that
Karimov prefers to avoid a rupture in the security relationship at