Uzbekistan has formally evicted the US from a base that has served as a hub for its combat operations in Afghanistan, the Washington Post reported yesterday.
Citing unnamed Pentagon and State Department officials, the newspaper reported the notice of eviction from Karshi-Khanabad air base, known as K2, was delivered by a courier from the Uzbek foreign ministry to the US Embassy in Tashkent on Friday.
Uzbekistan will give the US 180 days to move aircraft, personnel and equipment, according to the report.
The Post said the US will face several logistical problems for its operations in Afghanistan, if the decision is acted upon.
K2 has been a landing base to transfer humanitarian goods that are then taken by road into northern Afghanistan, particularly to Mazar-i-Sharif -- with no alternative for a region difficult to reach in the winter, the report said.
It is also a refueling base with a runway long enough for large military aircraft, the paper said.
US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld visited Central Asia this past week, where he inspected US bases in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan.
The Post quotes Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita as saying the US military does not depend on one base in any part of the world.
"We'll be able to conduct our operations as we need to, regardless of how this turns out. It's a diplomatic issue at the moment," Di Rita said.
Asked about the report, Pentagon spokesman Glenn Flood said early yesterday, "We are aware of the diplomatic note to the US Embassy on the issue of K2 air field and we are working with the State Department, evaluating the note to see exactly what it means."
"The air field has been important to us and the US allies in operations over there," Flood said.
The eviction notice came four days before a senior State Department official was to arrive in Tashkent for talks with the government of President Islam Karimov, the Post reported.
The US has regarded its bases in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan as vital for operations in Afghanistan. However, the US presence in Central Asia has caused tensions with Russia and China, which joined the five ex-Soviet Central Asian states earlier this month to demand a US deadline for leaving the bases.
US relations with Uzbekistan also have been strained by the Uzbek government's bloody suppression in May of a rebellion in the eastern town of Andizhan, which drew US criticism.
ECONOMIC WORRIES: The ruling PAP faces voters amid concerns that the city-state faces the possibility of a recession and job losses amid Washington’s tariffs Singapore yesterday finalized contestants for its general election on Saturday next week, with the ruling People’s Action Party (PAP) fielding 32 new candidates in the biggest refresh of the party that has ruled the city-state since independence in 1965. The move follows a pledge by Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong (黃循財), who took office last year and assumed the PAP leadership, to “bring in new blood, new ideas and new energy” to steer the country of 6 million people. His latest shake-up beats that of predecessors Lee Hsien Loong (李顯龍) and Goh Chok Tong (吳作棟), who replaced 24 and 11 politicians respectively
Archeologists in Peru on Thursday said they found the 5,000-year-old remains of a noblewoman at the sacred city of Caral, revealing the important role played by women in the oldest center of civilization in the Americas. “What has been discovered corresponds to a woman who apparently had elevated status, an elite woman,” archeologist David Palomino said. The mummy was found in Aspero, a sacred site within the city of Caral that was a garbage dump for more than 30 years until becoming an archeological site in the 1990s. Palomino said the carefully preserved remains, dating to 3,000BC, contained skin, part of the
Russian hackers last year targeted a Dutch public facility in the first such an attack on the lowlands country’s infrastructure, its military intelligence services said on Monday. The Netherlands remained an “interesting target country” for Moscow due to its ongoing support for Ukraine, its Hague-based international organizations, high-tech industries and harbors such as Rotterdam, the Dutch Military Intelligence and Security Service (MIVD) said in its yearly report. Last year, the MIVD “saw a Russian hacker group carry out a cyberattack against the digital control system of a public facility in the Netherlands,” MIVD Director Vice Admiral Peter Reesink said in the 52-page
‘WATER WARFARE’: A Pakistani official called India’s suspension of a 65-year-old treaty on the sharing of waters from the Indus River ‘a cowardly, illegal move’ Pakistan yesterday canceled visas for Indian nationals, closed its airspace for all Indian-owned or operated airlines, and suspended all trade with India, including to and from any third country. The retaliatory measures follow India’s decision to suspend visas for Pakistani nationals in the aftermath of a deadly attack by shooters in Kashmir that killed 26 people, mostly tourists. The rare attack on civilians shocked and outraged India and prompted calls for action against their country’s archenemy, Pakistan. New Delhi did not publicly produce evidence connecting the attack to its neighbor, but said it had “cross-border” links to Pakistan. Pakistan denied any connection to
RSS