Afghan President Hamid Karzai has invited the President of Kyrgyzstan Kurmanbek Bakiev to hold face-to-face negotiations in which the main topics will be issues of rendering assistance to restore Afghanistan and the U.S. military base and forces of anti-terrorist coalition Manas, located in the territory of Kyrgyzstan. This report was confirmed by the informed sources at the Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry, AKIpress news agency reported.
The source noted that the relevant proposal was submitted to Afghan Ambassador to Kazakhstan Abdul Hai Haider and Kyrgyz Ambassador Zhanish Rustenbekov during their meeting in Astana on June 2.
The meeting of the two presidents may take place at the Summit of Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) to be held in Yekaterinburg in mid-June.
On June 3, the Kyrgyz Embassy in Kazakhstan spread a message on the meeting of the two ambassadors, but the message did not include a possible meeting of the presidents.
"During the meeting, the heads of missions exchanged views on the status and prospects of bilateral relations between Kyrgyzstan and Afghanistan, as well as on the state of the internal political and domestic situation in both countries. At the end of the meeting, the sides agreed on the need to maintain close contacts to further assist in solving issues concerning relations between the two countries," the embassy released.
In February-March 2009, official Bishkek denounced the agreement with the United States and 11 countries on Manas air base and demanded from the United States to stop the activities of a military base within 180 days. The facility should be closed by Aug. 18 in 2009.
The Manas air base is a major center for the International Security Assistance Force and the military operations of coalition forces in Afghanistan. Twenty-four-hour service base includes the refueling of aircraft in the air, air transport, air medical evacuation and support to the movement of transit of personnel and cargo to Afghanistan and back.