Marat Sultanov, the speaker of Kyrgyzstan’s parliament, said that he wants more transparency on US payments for use of the Manas airfield.
According to his information, Americans point out that they pay annually to Kyrgyzstan 150 million dollars as financial aid. “We asked for more detailed information about the sum, because we seem to receive the money, but we do not see it,” he continued.
A deal was reached back in July under which the US would provide about $20 million in rent and $130 million in other assistance, pending Congressional approval. (Does anyone know if it was given, and if so, how it was structured?) When in the US discussing the issue, US officials told Sultanov they are open to more assistance to Kyrgyzstan in the form of military training.
While it would be nice if there was a simple one page information sheet outlining how much assistance is given and how it is earmarked, it seems that Sultanov is worried about what happens to the money after it gets to Bishkek. Transparency on payments to the Kyrgyz government is ultimately an issue to be brought up with the Kyrgyz government. The Finance Minister says that Kyrgyzstan receives $17.4 million in rent payments. Even if that is the exact sum the US agreed to pay, Sultanov might want to check Bakiev’s pockets if he thinks there is some money missing.
But it seems that Sultanov is perhaps looking for a way to get rid of the base or leverage a feigned interest in getting rid of the base into a renegotiated deal.
Marat Sultanov said as well that during the talks in the United States he had raised the question on whether or not it was really necessary to deploy the air base of the coalition troops on the territory of Kyrgyzstan, because “the problem of Afghanistan is fading.”
“Americans are sure, however, that the situation in Afghanistan continues to be very serious, and the need for having an air base in Bishkek is obvious. This is why we asked the U.S. officials to give us detailed information about the processes taking place in Afghanistan,” he said.
If he’s really looking for information on how far from over the conflict in and reconstruction of Afghanistan is, he could start with reading Josh’s Afghanistan coverage.
This post was written by...
Nathan Hamm – author of 2974 posts on Registan.net.
Nathan is the Founding Editor and Publisher of Registan.net, which he launched in 2003. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Uzbekistan 2000-2001 and received his MA in Central Asian Studies from the University of Washington in 2007. Since 2007, he has worked full-time as an analyst, consulting with private and government clients on Central Asian affairs, specializing in how socio-cultural and political factors shape risks and opportunities and how organizations can adjust their strategic and operational plans to account for these variables. Nathan is currently seeking research, analysis, and consulting opportunities. He can be contacted via Twitter or email.
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As someone that knows Marat Sultanov quite well, I don’t believe that he intends to push for the base’s closure. He is one of the more western aligned politicians in Kyrgyzstan, which is quite rare nowadays.
No one has been able to get a copy of the deal and no one here, including US supported aid workers, believe that the US can pump $120 million of aid into Kyrgyzstan when they’re reducing assistance to the region. He’s just simply asking questions that need to be raised.
130$ mln in “assistance” probably goes to corrupted USAID programs.