Kyrgyz lawmakers consider closing U.S. airbase
15/12/2006 10:32 MOSCOW, December 15 (RIA Novosti) - Kyrgyzstan's parliament passed a resolution Friday instructing the government to consider closing a U.S. airbase in the Central Asian country's capital, Bishkek, following a fatal incident involving an American serviceman.
Alexander Ivanov, 42, a truck driver with the fuel services company Aircraft Petroleum Management and the father of two, was fatally shot last week by Airman Zachary Hatfield while undergoing a routine security check at the Manas airbase.
The resolution calls on the government "to consider the expedience of the U.S. airbase's further stay in the country," and instructs law enforcement agencies to publish the results of the investigation into the criminal case in national newspapers.
Manas is the only U.S. base in post-Soviet Central Asia since Uzbekistan evicted American troops from its territory last year. Kyrgyzstan recently raised the leasing fee for the Manas base from the current $2.6 million to $150 million as of 2007.
The command of the airbase, which the United States has maintained in Kyrgyzstan since its anti-terrorism campaign in neighboring Afghanistan in 2001, said earlier the U.S. airman who killed the Kyrgyz national acted in self-defense and in accordance with security instructions, a statement argued by Ivanov's fellow drivers.
President Kurmanbek Bakiyev has asked the U.S. side to make sure the serviceman accused of the killing stays in the country through the end of the probe being conducted by U.S. officials and Kyrgyz prosecutors. The Foreign Ministry has also demanded stripping him of immunity.
The resolution also calls on the government to revise the provisions of a Kyrgyz-U.S. agreement stipulating the status of U.S. military servicemen and civilian employees in Kyrgyzstan, and demands Hatfield's handover to Kyrgyz authorities for questioning.
The Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a regional security and economic group that comprises the former Soviet Central Asian republics plus Russia and China, has demanded that Washington provide a timetable for withdrawing its troops from its member states.
In September, an American KC-135 tanker entered into a collision with the Kyrgyz presidential airplane, severely damaging a wing of the Tu-154, which was sometimes used for commercial flights.
A government commission subsequently determined that the American crew was responsible for the accident.
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