Negotiations on the U.S. Transit Center at "Manas" are underway with the Kyrgyz leadership, CA-News quotes the U.S. Ambassador to Bishkek Pamela Spratlen as saying.
"The issue is under discussion. Negotiations are underway with the Kyrgyz side on its stay," Spratlen said at the opening of the Global Entrepreneurship Week in Bishkek on Nov.14.
Earlier, Prime Minister Atambayev has repeatedly stated that the current military Transit Center of the U.S. at the "Manas" Airport should be civil. He also reminded that the agreement between Kyrgyzstan and the U.S. on this Center expires in 2014.
An agreement on deploying the U.S. military base in the country's territory is in effect until 2014.
A U.S. Air Force base was deployed at the International Airport Manas in the capital of Kyrgyzstan in 2001 within the Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan.
Later, it was renamed the Transit Center (TC), which is the key point of transportation of the U.S. military equipment and servicemen toward the places of war actions in Afghanistan.