EurasiaNet Eurasia Insight - US Regional Military Chief Visits Turkmenistan

EURASIA INSIGHT

US REGIONAL MILITARY CHIEF VISITS TURKMENISTAN
1/16/09

United States Central Command (USCENTCOM) chief General David Petraeus, who oversees US military operations in Central Asia and the Middle East, is in Turkmenistan to "discuss issues of mutual interest" with senior government officials.

Turkmenistan’s strategic location north of Afghanistan and its natural gas riches have made the remote Central Asian state of increasing interest to both the West and Russia.

The USCENTCOM press service said that hopes also existed for a "constructive" meeting between Petraeus and President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov.

Petraeus’s January 16 visit to Ashgabat comes after a two-day trip to Kazakhstan and meetings with Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev and representatives of the Kazakh Ministry of Defense. Petraeus is scheduled to visit both Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan this weekend, CA-news.org reported.

The round of regional meetings takes place against a backdrop of uncertainty about the future of the US military airbase in Kyrgyzstan.

Media reports suggest that Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev may be willing to close the base in return for economic and political support from Russia.

However, one leading Kyrgyz political pundit has warned that an "amateurish" Bakiyev is playing "a very thin game" by hyping Russia’s interest in seeing the air base closed. Moscow has recently offered $2 billion in investments to the Central Asian state.

Mars Sariev claims that Bakiyev hopes to gain more money from the US for the base after President-Elect Barrack Obama takes office, and the US troop build-up in Afghanistan begins in earnest later this year.

"I think what we have here is a political game," Sariev told the Kyrgyz news agency AKIpress on January 15. "We must understand that the American air base is a gigantic investment, not only from the USA, but also from the entire Western world."

Meanwhile, a visit by President Bakiyev to Moscow, originally due to take place early next week, has been postponed until February, the Russian newspaper Kommersant reported on January 15.

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