Under President Askar Akayev, an American military base was set up in Kyrgyzstan as part of the anti-terrorist operation in Afghanistan.
Although the situation in Afghanistan is still unstable, the new Kyrgyz president, Kurmanbek Bakiyev, has given his unconditional support for the recommendations of the recent summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (Russia, China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) in Astana. The summit called on the U.S. to give a date for the withdrawal of its troops from Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. Bakiyev made it known that the Russian air base in Kant would remain.
Sergei Markedonov, head of the international relations department at the Institute of Political and Military Analysis said the recent events in Central Asia showed that the region needed "a regional policeman."
He said that Russia could be this policeman, but that it had neither the resources nor the political will to act alone. Russia should work together with the U.S. or otherwise China would dominate the region.
Russia could be "a junior partner" of the U.S. but it would not be taken as seriously by China, Markedonov said.
The Central Asian regimes are weak and need external support to stabilize the situation. Russian-American cooperation appears more promising than collaboration between Russia and China.
