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Crackdown Muddies U.S.-Uzbek Relations
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| Contributor | ArmyDem |
| Last Edited | ArmyDem Jun 04, 2005 12:40pm |
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| Category | News |
| Media | Newspaper - Washington Post |
| News Date | Saturday, June 4, 2005 06:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | Washington in Talks on Long-Term Use of Base
By Ann Scott Tyson and Robin Wright
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, June 4, 2005; Page A01
The United States is negotiating long-term use of a major military base in Uzbekistan to expand the global reach of American forces, despite a brutal government crackdown on protests there last month, Bush administration officials said.
The talks have gone on behind the scenes for several months but have become more awkward for the administration since last month's unrest, which produced the heaviest bloodshed since the Central Asian country left the Soviet Union in 1991. Human rights advocates argue that a new pact would undermine the administration's goal of spreading democracy in the Islamic world.
The U.S. military has relied heavily on Uzbekistan since 2001 in operations in Afghanistan, but on a temporary basis. U.S. Special Operations Forces, intelligence and reconnaissance missions, and air logistics flights all use the Karshi-Khanabad (K2) airfield in southeastern Uzbekistan, according to an official report on U.S. basing.
Now, as the Pentagon carries out a repositioning of U.S. forces overseas, the Bush administration finds itself pursuing the strategic and geopolitical benefits of the Uzbekistan base even as it expresses deep concern about the country's political repression and worries about the risk of American troops caught in widening civil unrest. |
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