Foreign Correspondence

[Amaunet]

French troops arrive in ex-Soviet state of Kyrgyzstan


The presence of the French troops lends a feeling that the Kyrgyzstan base is a true coalition base designed to fight the ‘war on terror’ and not for it’s more important reason to deny China easy land access to either Russia, the Middle East or to the oil and gas fields of the Caspian Sea. Not to mention the U.S. is digging in.

-Am

French troops arrive in ex-Soviet state of Kyrgyzstan

17:05 2005-08-02
Some 50 French military personnel arrived at an anti-terror coalition air base in Kyrgyzstan to participate in local security operations before parliamentary elections in Afghanistan.

U.S. Air Force Captain Alysia Harvey said the French air force troops had arrived during the past few days, and planned to stay for about three months at the U.S.-led base outside the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek.

Harvey declined to say how many and what type of aircraft the French had brought, "for operational security reasons."

The Manas base hosts about 1,000 U.S. troops to support combat operations in Afghanistan.

Authorities in neighboring Uzbekistan demanded last week that U.S. troops pull out of a base in the country's south within 180 days, the AP reports.


http://newsfromrussia.com/cis/2005/08/02/60920.html

Note:

On July 5, at the summit of the six-nation (China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), held at the Kazakh capital Astana, a joint declaration called on the US-led, anti-terror coalition to set a timetable for its withdrawal of troops and the temporary use of infrastructure in Central Asian countries. The declaration pointed out that since the Afghan situation was now under control, the US had no reason to maintain bases in the region. In addition to the facilities in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, the US has military overflight rights with Tajikistan.

In Kyrgyzstan, observers claim that President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was forced to reconsider because of some attractive offer from overseas that he couldn't refuse. Information was leaked to the press of the alleged promise of a $200 million interest-free loan.
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A geopolitical pattern has become clear over the past months. One-by-one, with documented overt and covert Washington backing and financing, new US-friendly regimes have been put in place in former Soviet states which are in a strategic relation to possible pipeline routes from the Caspian Sea.

The strategic issue of geopolitical control over Eurasia looms large. And increasingly it is clear that not only Putin's Russia is an object of the new Washington "war on tyranny". It is becoming clear to most now that the grand design in Eurasia on the part of Washington is not to pre-empt Osama bin Laden and his "cave dwellers".

The current Washington strategy targets many Eurasian former Soviet republics which per se have no known oil or gas reserves. What they do have, however, is strategic military or geopolitical significance for the Washington policy of dominating the future of Eurasia.

That policy has China as its geopolitical, economic and military fulcrum. A look at the Eurasian map and at the target countries for various US-sponsored color revolutions makes this unmistakably clear. To the east of the Caspian Sea, Washington in one degree or another today controls Pakistan, Afghanistan, potentially Kyrgystan, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan. These serve as a potential US-controlled barrier or buffer zone between China and Russian, Caspian and Iranian energy sources. Washington is out to deny China easy land access to either Russia, the Middle East or to the oil and gas fields of the Caspian Sea.
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