Tuesday, June 09, 2009 BISHKEK: Kyrgyzstan said Tuesday it was open to talks on keeping a US military presence on its territory, in a possible softening of line over the eviction of a base key for coalition operations in Afghanistan."Kyrgyzstan is prepared to discuss the question of the use of its territory for assisting anti-terrorism coalition forces in Afghanistan with all interested sides," Foreign Minister Kadyrbek Sarbaev told state news agency.The Kyrgyz government had announced it was evicting the US military from the airbase at Manas after Moscow agreed to provide over two billion dollars worth of loans and aid to the impoverished former Soviet republic.Since the closure was announced, Washington has secured transit routes for non-lethal cargo through several other Central Asian states, but the agreements do not address the problem of troop and military material transport.
BAGHDAD: Nearly 500 U.S. Army combat engineers who specialize in clearing roads of explosives started shifting to southern Afghanistan."We are probably going to be the beginning of the influx you are going to see to Afghanistan," Lt. Col. Kevin Landers, commander of the Fort Carson, Colo.-based 4th Engineer Battalion, said as crews packed crates and cleaned vehicles for the flight to Kandahar.Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. soldiers and Marines to Afghanistan to bolster the 38,000 American troops already battling the resurgent Taliban."We are going to take this footprint out of Iraq," said Landers, whose battalion received word of its reassignment last month just after taking command of clearing roads in Baghdad of bombs and debris.
Comments