Foreign Military Will Stay in Kyrgyzstan

The leadership of the air base belonging to the antiterrorist coalition and located in Manas international airport in the Kyrgyz capital, Bishkek, has signed with the Kyrgyz government an agreement on leasing an additional piece of land to locate their equipment and machinery.

As part of the agreement, the Kyrgyz Defence Ministry has granted the air base on lease approximately 300 hectares of land north of Manas airport, near the village of Mramornoye. The territory "will be used to move the personnel and machinery from the current tent camp".

The airport territory currently hosting the base of the international coalition forces "will either be returned to Manas or used to locate the equipment and machinery of the air base", according to airport employees.

In compliance with the agreement, the foreign military will stay in Kyrgyzstan "till the end of the antiterrorist operation in Afghanistan". Now there are a total of about 1,500 soldiers and officers from the USA and other coalition member-states at the air base.