US Told To Leave Central Asia
Leaders of a six-nation security bloc led by Beijing and Moscow called for a deadline to be set for the withdrawal of US forces from bases in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

The presidents of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), which comprises Russia, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and China, signed a declaration calling for deadlines to be set on the closure of airbases used by US forces in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.

"Considering that the active phase of the military anti-terrorist operation in Afghanistan has finished, member states... consider it essential that the relevant participants in the anti-terrorist coalition set deadlines on the temporary use" of bases in the SCO area, the declaration read.

The two main coalition bases, one at Karshi-Khanabad in Uzbekistan, the other at Manas in Kyrgyzstan, have each been used to support US-led operations in Afghanistan since 2001.

Germany also has a few hundred military personnel, most of them engineering and medical staff, at a separate base in Uzbekistan, Termez, while a few hundred French forces work from Tajikistan's main airport in Dushanbe.

The declaration also included a call for "non-interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states," seemingly a swipe at growing Western influence in Central Asia, which Moscow has long considered its sphere of influence.

Analysts see the declaration as a blow to US moves to set up a security line across Central Asia to protect vital oil interests and create a barrier against growing terrorism in the region.

The SCO summit marks the first such gathering since popular protests toppled Askar Akayev's regime in Kyrgyzstan in March and a military crackdown in Uzbekistan in May in which hundreds of people are feared to have died.

The leaders' declaration reflects repeated complaints by leaders such as Uzbek President Islam Karimov who have suggested that the West was behind uprisings in three former Soviet republics in the last two years, Ukraine, Georgia and Kyrgyzstan.

The demand for deadlines for the base closures comes despite a recent assurance made by Kyrgyz interim President Kurmanbek Bakiyev that his country would honor existing agreements on maintaining foreign bases in the country.

It reflects ongoing rivalry between Washington and Moscow over their countries' respective roles in the former Soviet Union, as the United States has been pressuring Russia to withdraw leftover bases from Georgia.