Azerbaijan, Baku, June 29 / Trend , E.Tariverdiyeva, V.Zhavoronkova/
Kyrgyzstan has coordinated its actions on the Manas American military base with Russia, said Leonid Gusev, Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Eastern Asia and SCO at the Moscow State Institute of International Relations of the Russian Foreign Ministry.
"If our country sharply rejected this, the answer would have been quite different, quite hard," Gusev wrote to Trend in an email. "Thus, before the meeting of Presidents Medvedev and Obama, Russia demonstrates that it wants to achieve positive results in bilateral cooperation and wants to take steps to meet the United States, especially with regard to combating terrorism and extremism."
The Kyrgyz parliament supported the decision taken on June 25 by the Kyrgyz government, which signed an agreement with the United States on cooperation and establishment of Transit Conveyance Centre at the Manas international airport.
Early this year, the Kyrgyz parliament has approved the president's decision on withdrawal of the United States Air Forces from the Manas airbase and at that time, Russia has issued a giant loan worth $2 billion to Kyrgyzstan. Moscow and Bishkek denied the relationship of these two events.
U.S. President Barack Obama will pay an official visit to Russia on July 6-8 upon Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev's invitation, the Kremlin press service reported on June 18.
The agreement on Obama's visit to Moscow has been reached during the two leaders' April meeting in London before the G20 summit. At that time, Medvedev stated that he is satisfied with familiarization with his American counterpart and hopes for an interesting and fruitful meeting in the Russian capital.
Russia's agreement on continuation of negotiations with Washington on the use of American-Manas airport has been testified with the statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry, which says that the conclusion of the agreement is the sovereign right of Kyrgyzstan, Gusev said.
There are reports, appeared in some foreign media, particularly the French that before signing a new agreement on Manas, the Presidents of the United States and Afghanistan have written letters to Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiev with a request to reconsider a decision on the Manas, the expert said.
He also said that France's involvement in the process has become known. According to the French newspaper Le Monde, European participation was another significant reason for Bakiev, Gusev said.
"The fact is that the United States and NATO realized that it will be very difficult to fight against the Taliban in Afghanistan without this base," Gusev said.
The U.S. will pay $60 million a year for a lease of the lands and facilities of Manas, although only $17.5 million was paid to use the U.S. Air Force base in Manas, which is closed at the moment.
The Pentagon has to build a terminal for their aircraft and facilities in the Bishkek airport to store cargos. Now Kyrgyz and U.S. militaries will jointly protect the Manas and its checkpoints.
The agreement was signed for one year with possibility of extension without re-considering the conditions for five years.