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Rice: U.S. Supports Reformist 'Tulip Revolution' Government NewsMax.com Wires BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice won fresh promises Tuesday that U.S. forces can remain at a pivotal Central Asian air base that she called a front line in the war on terrorism. On a trip to Central Asia and Afghanistan, Rice also encouraged further democratic progress for Kyrgyzstan's fledgling reformist government. "We know the aspiration for democracy and for freedom and for liberty is indeed a universal one, and the United States will stand with the people of Kyrgyzstan as they continue developing a stable and free democracy," Rice told local leaders. A popular revolt the Bush administration calls the Tulip Revolution, and largely clean elections, brought President Kurmanbek Bakiyev to power in Kyrgyzstan this year and sent his authoritarian predecessor into exile in Russia. Rice will be in Afghanistan on Wednesday, her second trip there as secretary of state. Before leaving the area, she may change her itinerary to visit neighboring Pakistan, where tens of thousands died in an earthquake on Saturday. Story Continues Below
The Manas air base near the Kyrgyz capital city was Rice's first stop in the region. The base supplies fuel and other goods to U.S.-led troops fighting the four-year-old war in Afghanistan. Improving U.S. relations with Kyrgyzstan are based on shared principles of political freedom, Rice told some of the approximately 1,000 U.S., French and Spanish forces stationed at the base. Rice was also using the trip to try to firm up U.S. rights to the base. The United States pays about $40 million to $50 million a year for use of the facility. Tensions over military bases rose over the summer, when the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, dominated by Russia and China, urged the U.S. military to withdraw its bases from both Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan. The move was seen as an effort by Russia and China to drive the United States out of the strategically placed, resource-rich region, and Bakiyev initially seemed to go along. Kyrgyzstan also hosts a Russian base, and the country is still heavily influenced in language, architecture and culture by its years as a Soviet republic. Neither Kyrgyzstan nor its neighbors should have to choose between friendly relations with the United States or friendly relations with Russia or China, Rice said. Although Bakiyev had made similar promises about the future of the base before, U.S. officials said there were signs of wavering behind the scenes and a move to renegotiate the terms of any long-range U.S. presence. This time, Rice and Bakiyev signed a brief statement promising open-ended U.S. use of the Manas air base for Afghan operations as well as a U.S. inquiry into whether past payments for use of the facility might have fallen into corrupt hands. U.S. troops are expected to be in Afghanistan for a long time to come. The difficulty of their mission was underscored Tuesday when suspected Taliban rebels ambushed a police convoy in southern Afghanistan and killed 19 officers. The attack comes amid a major resurgence in violence by Taliban-led rebels that has left about 1,400 people dead in the past half year. Rice, whose academic background was as a Soviet specialist, also tried out her Russian on an audience of politicians, academics and advisers gathered in a Soviet-era opera house for a discussion of an ongoing effort to revamp the Kyrgyz constitution. Russian speakers said her grammar was rusty and her American accent prominent, but the effort brought appreciative smiles. "We watched with great interest the Kyrgyz people who decided to take fate into their own hands and to give themselves a chance for democracy," Rice said in English.
© 2005 The Associated Press Editor's note:
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