Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

Kyrgyzstan: New president ponders US base

Posted: Monday, July 11, 10:13am EDT

Kyrgyzstan's interim leader who won an overwhelming victory in presidential elections said Monday that the presence of a US base in the Central Asian nation should be reconsidered.
Kurmanbek Bakiyev also said his landslide win Sunday "could without exaggeration be called a confident victory of our people's revolution." He promised to fight endemic corruption and reduce the power of the presidency by shifting some functions to the prime minister to have constructive relations with opposition politicians.

With more than three-quarters of the ballots counted from 95 percent of the districts, Bakiyev received nearly 89 percent of the vote, giving him an insurmountable lead over five challengers, said Central Election Commission chief Tuigunaali Abdraimov. Bakiyev's nearest rival in Sunday's vote tallied less than 4 percent.

A joint foreign observer team from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the European Parliament said that the vote showed "tangible progress" in meeting international standards on free and fair elections.

Bakiyev's comments about the US base will strike a worrying note for Washington.

"Afghanistan has had presidential and parliamentary elections. The situation there has stabilized. So now we may begin discussing the necessity of US military forces' presence," Bakiyev said. "When and how it will happen, time will show."

The comments echoed a recent call by the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, an alliance led by Russia and China that includes Kyrgyzstan, which said the United States should set a date for the withdrawal of its bases in his country and in neighboring Uzbekistan.

Both bases support US-led coalition forces' activities in Afghanistan.





http://www.csmonitor.com/newsinbrief/brieflies.html#WORLD10:13:39