BEIJING, 11 July 2005 — US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice yesterday rejected calls by a regional grouping headed by Russia and China for a deadline for US forces to pull out of bases in Central Asia, including Afghanistan.
The presidents of the six-nation Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), which also comprises Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, signed a declaration at a summit last week calling for deadlines to be set on the closure of air bases used by US forces in Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
The bases were set up after the United States launched a military campaign to overthrow the Taleban regime in Afghanistan following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. Afghanistan is not part of the regional grouping and did not sign the agreement.
“The one country that said that the United States should stay in Afghanistan was Afghanistan,” Rice said on the last day of her visit to China as part of a four-nation Asia tour.
“I think that since Afghanistan is sovereign, since Afghanistan in fact has an elected president, who was elected freely and fairly, then the relationship we have with Afghanistan is with that government.” She argued US troops were still needed in the Central Asian country.
“There is still a fight going on in Afghanistan. The United States and others are training Afghan forces. The Afghan army is coming along. Its numbers are coming along. It’s capability is coming along. We’re training them in counterterrorism matters,” Rice said.
“But there are still a lot of terrorist activities in Afghanistan ... It is our understanding that the people of Afghanistan want and need the help of US armed forces.”
The SCO’s agreement reflects ongoing rivalry between Washington and Moscow over their countries’ respective roles in the former Soviet Union, as well as China’s apprehensions about US troops being stationed right next door.
Rice later arrived in Thailand’s resort island of Phuket yesterday to assess post-tsunami reconstruction efforts on the second leg of her Asian tour.
She begins her program today with a working brunch with Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra and meets with Foreign Minister Kantathi Suphamongkhon before embarking on a brief tour of the region battered by December’s deadly waves that left some 5,400 people dead in the kingdom.
