US officials are trying to stay as positive as possible about the effect of the loss of Manas on operations in Afghanistan.
“While we value the relationship and the arrangements, the United States would certainly be able to continue operations in Afghanistan if we did not have that facility,” said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman on Wednesday.
It is interesting to note how similar the problem US officials face now is to the situation faced in 2001. US operations are set to ramp up quickly and significantly in Afghanistan, and there is a desperate need for a way to get supplies into the country. And it is interesting that the response is shaping up to be somewhat similar.
The U.S. has been testing, for some months, alternative Central Asian overland supply routes into Afghanistan and expect to fully implement by spring a deal with Uzbekistan in which U.S. non-lethal supplies would be moved into Afghanistan by commercial rail from Uzbekistan. The rail route has been tested a number of times, with U.S. financial compensation to the Uzbeks, to haul lumber, fuel, cement and other supplies into Afghanistan.
It seems unlikely that there will be anything like a return to K2 or the 2001-2005 US-Uzbekistan relationship. But, how much closer will the relationship be? Is the announcement that a new deal will be signed timed to drive down the price tag of Kyrgyz demands?
By the way, the AP has helpful pronunciation guides for Kyrgyzstan (KEER-guh-stan) and Uzbekistan (ooz-BECK-uh-stan)
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Nathan Hamm – author of 2040 posts on Registan.net.
Nathan founded Registan.net 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 clients on Central Asian affairs, specializing in how socio-cultural factors shape risks and opportunities. Follow him on Twitter or drop him a line.
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That’s not even close to the pronunciation of Kyrgyzstan, is it?
In fairness, I think those pronunciation guides are for the Anglo version of the words, and God knows that Kyrgyzstan is not an easy one. I am prepared to stand corrected on this, but I think that the proposed pronunciation for Kyrgyzstan is closer than Uzbekistan.
they both have at least one phoneme that doesn’t appear in English, so from that perspective, you could give them props for trying. on the other hand, though, the KEER-guh-stan sounds like the proper hillbilly pronunciation. From personal experience, I can attest that “YOOZ-beky-stan” is the hillbilly for O’zbekistan. oh if I had a nickel for every time somebody asked me how things were in Yoozbekystan. that would give me only sightly more than for all the times people asked what I was doing in West Pakistan. i guess they sell some interesting maps at um, wal mart or someplace.