Last week, media reports said Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev was planning to sign a decree ordering the closure within six months of the Manas base, which the United States has used since the 2001 war to overthrow the Taliban in Afghanistan.
"We did not discuss such possibility at all," General David Petraeus, the U.S. Central Command chief told a news conference after a meeting with Kyrgyz Prime Minister Igor Chudinov.
He also said the Kyrgyz leadership assured him that an official Kyrgyz delegation that recently visited Russia had not raised the issue during talks in Moscow.
The base at Manas airport, some 30 kilometers (17 miles) east of the country's capital, Bishkek, hosts over 1,000 U.S. military personnel and nine military transport and refueling planes.
Petraeus said a team of U.S. officials would arrive in Kyrgyzstan in the near future to discuss a number of projects that could expand and improve the use of the base in support of an international antiterrorism coalition in Afghanistan.
The general said the base was worth some $63 million a year to Kyrgyzstan, including the rent, service and maintenance contracts, and wages for Kyrgyz employees.
The U.S. government allocated an additional $25 million this year for assistance to the Kyrgyz military in the fight against terrorism, extremism and drug-trafficking, Petraeus added.
