US to wind up its Air Force base in Bishkek by August 18.

25/6 Tass 260

BISHKEK, June 25 (Itar-Tass) - The US Air Force base stationed at
Manas airport in Bishkek is to wind up its activities on the territory of
Kyrgyzstan by August 18 in accordance with earlier resolutions adopted by
the Kyrgyz leadership said Deputy chief of the Kyrgyz parliamentary
committee for international affairs Kabai Karabekov on Thursday.

On Thursday, deputies of the Kyrgyz parliament adopted an
intergovernmental agreement on the deployment of a new Transit
Transportation Center at Manas for airlifting cargoes for Coalition forces
in Afghanistan. Only an administrative- technical personnel and a small
group of servicemen to guard the Center jointly with their Kyrgyz
colleagues will stay on, the MP said.
For the time being there are some 1,500 foreign servicemen staying
there, but in future the number of such servicemen will not be so large,
Karabekov said. He also admitted that the Center would preserve its status
of a military facility because of the specifics of transit cargoes.
"Nonetheless, it will no longer be an airbase. The airbase will have
been withdrawn by the set deadline in accordance with the earlier reached
agreements", the MP said.
Meanwhile, Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Kadyrbek Sarbayev admitted,
talking to Kyrgyz MPs, that the intergovernmental agreement Kyrgyzstan
signed with the United States does not stipulate what particular kinds of
planes, weapons and hardware will be stationed on the territory of the new
Center.
"Such things are not spelled out in documents of this kind, but we
shall see to it that there are no jets, radars there capable to tap
telephone or other conversations," Head of the Communist bloc in the
Kyrgyz parliament Iskhak Masaliyev said in an interview with Itar-Tass.
"The US-Kyrgyz agreement envisages the construction of new terminals,
warehouses for the needs of the Center. Actually, it will be another
airport in Manas," Masaliyev said.
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