Washington faces ultimatum on Kyrgyzstan airbase

0 Comments | AFP, May, 2006

BISHKEK (AFP) — Kyrgyz and US negotiators met for talks on a strategic US air base in this Central Asian state, with Washington facing an ultimatum to pay more rent or face eviction.

"US-Kyrgyz negotiations on the presence of the US air force at Manas airport started in Bishkek on Wednesday," Murat Ashirbekov, a spokesman for the country's defence ministry, told AFP.

Last month, Kyrgyzstan's President Kurmanbek Bakiyev said Washington had to agree to pay more rent for the Manas base -- located at the main airport serving the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek -- by June 1 or leave.

In an interview in February, Bakiyev said he wanted the United States to pay 207 million dollars a year for the base, which he said represented a hundredfold increase from what Washington...