ALMATY - Uzbekistan is moving to ban foreign military bases on its territory, local media reported on Thursday, ending speculation it could allow the United States to reopen a base for operations in neighbouring Afghanistan.
However, some analysts said the ban might not prevent
military cooperation with the United States, which could still
use Uzbek facilities for special-forces operations to fight the
Afghan Taliban or other regional threats.
The ban is part of a major foreign-policy document proposed
by President Islam Karimov, which was approved by the lower
house of parliament this week. It was the first such document
since Uzbekistan’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991,
and the Senate is expected to pass it this month.
Uzbekistan, a mainly Muslim Central Asian nation, evicted a
U.S. military air base from Karshi-Khanabad as ties with
Washington and the European Union soured following the
government’s suppression of an uprising in the town of Andizhan
in May 2005.
Karimov, who brooks no dissent in his nation of 30 million,
has since improved ties with the West, prompting speculation at
home and abroad that he could allow the U.S. military to return
to his country.
But the document adopted by the lower house “allows no
deployment of foreign military bases or other facilities on the
territory”, according to Uzbek media on Thursday.
It also said that Uzbekistan would not take part in any
military and political blocs and its servicemen would not take
part in peacekeeping operations abroad.
In June, Uzbekistan suspended its membership in the
Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organisation – better
known by its Russian acronym ODKB – which gathers several
ex-Soviet states and is seen by some analysts as a regional
counterbalance to NATO.
Arkady Dubnov, a Moscow-based expert on Central Asia, said
Uzbekistan’s new status of neutrality, approved by a docile
legislature, had been designed to placate its former imperial
master Russia, irked by its plans to quit the ODKB.
“It looks like Karimov is sending a signal to his Russian
partners: ‘If I am no longer with you, this does not mean that I
will now be against you’,” Dubnov told Reuters.
“What’s more, Uzbekistan’s declarative ban on deployment of
foreign bases on its land will not hamper its cooperation with
the Americans,” he said.
He said that U.S. special forces, which typically need
minimal logistical support for their operations, “would be able
to launch attacks on Afghanistan from Uzbek facilities after the
2014 NATO troop pullout from Afghanistan to eliminate terrorist
threats”.
Uzbekistan is part of what Washington calls the Northern
Distribution Network (NDN), a supply line for the U.S.-led
contingent fighting the Taliban that also stretches through
Latvia, Russia, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan.
