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Russia Messing With Zer0

Mike

Well-known member
Russia Plays Tricky Game With U.S. Over Kyrgyzstan Base
Reuters ^ | Wed Feb 4, 2009


Russia has embarked on a risky political game with new U.S. President Barack Obama by forcing its ally Kyrgyzstan to close a U.S. military base while keeping up overtures to establish warmer relations with Washington.

The Manas air base near the capital of the Central Asian state is a key supply centre for U.S. troops fighting in Afghanistan, a campaign that Obama has set as a key priority.

Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev standing alongside Russia's Dmitry Medvedev at a news conference in Moscow, said on Tuesday he would close the base after securing a vital rescue package of over $2 billion from Russia.

The surprise move came in the middle of Medvedev's overtures to Obama aimed at raising bilateral ties from post-Cold War lows where they have languished since the days of former U.S. President George W. Bush.

"One could not have chosen a worst moment for such move," Alexei Malashenko of Carnegies Endowment for Peace think tank said.

Russian officials have said they received positive signals from Washington on key points of disagreement -- U.S. plans to station parts of a missile defence system in Eastern Europe and the issue of NATO membership for ex-Soviet Ukraine and Georgia.

Russian pressure on Kyrgyzstan to close Manas sits oddly since analysts have seen the NATO effort to defeat the Taliban as one of the few areas in which the interests of Washington and Moscow largely coincide.


(Excerpt) Read more at uk.reuters.com ...
 
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