Keeping U.S. and coalition forces supplied in Afghanistan requires some artful diplomatic maneuvering. Take the case of Manas Air Base: After the Kyrgyz government threatened to close the crucial supply hub, U.S. officials secured an eleventh-hour deal in late June to keep the base open. The deal, of course, came with strings attached. The United States agreed to a rent increase, and promising to refer to the base as (ahem) a “transit center.”
The United States is doing a similar diplomatic dance with Turkmenistan, another strategically located former Soviet republic. Eurasianet's Deirdre Tynan reported yesterday that the U.S. military has quietly stationed a small contingent of airmen in Turkmenistan's capital, Ashgabat, to assist in refueling operations. It's not the only assistance Turkmenistan has provided: As Tynan also points out, the Turkmen government has also allowed shipments of aviation fuel and other goods to supply points in northern Afghanistan since 2002.
Acknowledgment of Turkmenistan's place in the "northern supply route" to Afghanistan is unusual, particularly given the country's political isolation. Before his death in 2006, Turkmen President "Father of all Turkmen" Saparmurat Niyazov gave North Korea's Kim Jong-il a run for his money as world's most bizarre dictator. He renamed the months; made his book of wisdom mandatory reading; and had a rotating gold statue built in his likeness, pictured here. Niyazov's successor, Gurbanguly Berdimukhamedov, has taken few steps to open up the country, and a State Department spokesman told Tynan that the Pentagon did not want U.S. diplomats publicly discussing about military basing in Turkmenistan.
But Tynan also found a news story released by the Manas public affairs office in November that mentioned a delivery of Thanksgiving turkey and cranberries to the isolated contingent in Turkmenistan. D'oh! That story has been scrubbed from the Manas website, but it's cached here.
In related news, another possible supply deal with a despotic Central Asian government has apparently fallen through. As we reported earlier, the South Koreans recently made a deal with Uzbekistan to develop an air transport hub that could also be used as a back-door supply route to Afghanistan. That proposal had U.S. private sector participation, but a source familiar with the negotiations told Danger Room that the Americans were now out of the effort. With Manas now back in play, it may not be worth cozying up too much to Uzbek dictator Islam Karimov.
[PHOTO: Wikimedia]
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