DUSHANBE, April 3, Asia-Plus – While the government of Uzbekistan is allowing members of the U.S. military to transit through a NATO base in the country on their way to neighboring Afghanistan, the U.S. isn’t seeking permission to move back into the nation on a large scale, the U.S. ambassador to Uzbekistan told reporters last week, an item entitled “US: No plans for AF base in Uzbekistan” posted on AirForceTimes’ website on April 2 said.
“The United States currently has no bases in Uzbekistan, and the U.S. has not requested a military base in Uzbekistan,” Ambassador Richard Norland said during a March 17 press conference there.
At the start of Operation Enduring Freedom in October 2001, the Air Force set up operations in Uzbekistan at Karshi-Khanabad, commonly called “K2” and located 90 miles north of the Afghan border. Uzbekistan evicted the Air Force in 2005 after the U.S. government criticized Uzbek leaders for a May 2005 crackdown on protests that left hundreds of people dead. The Uzbek government countered that fewer than 200 people had died and blamed Islamic radicals for inciting the protests.
The expulsion compelled the Air Force to shift special operations and conventional C-130s from K2 to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and Manas Air Base in Kyrgyzstan.
As of January 31, Uzbekistan has allowed U.S. troops and civilians assigned to NATO or the International Security Assistance Force to pass through a German-operated transit terminal at Termez on a case-by-case basis, Norland said. As of late March, only one American, a civilian adviser to NATO, had traveled through Termez, the American embassy noted.
