Kyrgyzstan has rejected a request by Washington to deploy AWACS reconnaisance planes at a base used by the United States to support operations in Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan's foreign minister said Tuesday. The request to deploy the planes at a base near Kyrgyzstan's capital Bishkek was rejected after consultations with regional allies including the Beijing and Moscow-led Shanghai Co-operation Organisation, Kyrgyz Foreign Minister Askar Aitmatov said.
"It was considered inexpedient to deploy AWACS on the republic's territory," Aitmatov said.
"The coalition forces' airbase ... exists to provide support for international counter-terrorist operations in Afghanistan, for which the use of American reconnaisance planes is not envisaged," Aitmatov told state television.
Tuesday's announcement follows a succession of articles in Kyrgyzstan's state-sanctioned media criticising Washington for allegedly fomenting unrest ahead of forthcoming parliamentary and presidential elections in this mountain republic.
Around 1,000 US military personnel are currently based at the Manas base near Bishkek, where US-led forces took up residence during their military intervention in nearby Afghanistan in 2001.
The US presence has raised hackles in Moscow, which opened its own airbase in Kyrgyzstan a few kilometres (miles) from the US base in 2003.
Moscow grudgingly admits the US forces' usefulness for keeping order in Afghanistan, but Russian officials have insisted that their country remains the main power-broker within the former Soviet Central Asian region - Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. US troops are however also posted at a major airbase in Kyrgyzstan's neighbour Uzbekistan.
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