Why more US base expansion? Attack on Iran?

“U.S. base in Kyrgyzstan remains on track despite tensions

By Walter Pincus

Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, August 7, 2010

The United States is planning to move ahead with construction of a $10 million military training base in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, the site of a bloody uprising in June against the new government that reportedly left more than 300 dead.

Called the Osh Polygon, the base was first proposed under former Kyrgyz president Kurmanbek Bakiyev as a facility to train Kyrgyz troops for counterterrorism operations. After the ouster of Bakiyev on charges of corruption, discussions continued under the new Kyrgyz president, Roza Otunbayeva, with whose government Washington is trying to broaden relationships.

Home to an air base key to U.S. and coalition forces fighting in Afghanistan, the Central Asian country of 5.5 million is far from stabilized. On Thursday police in Bishkek, firing guns in the air, stopped demonstrations by supporters of Urmat Baryktobasov, the leader of an opposition party that government officials said was funded by the Bakiyev family. Otunbayeva told the Kyrgyz National News Service, "It was another attempt to destabilize the country."

Meanwhile, tensions remain high in the south between Kyrgyz government soldiers and the Uzbek minorities living there, according to Robert Blake, assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asian affairs. Speaking at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Blake voiced concern about security of the southern border with Tajikistan and "the possibility that some militants from Afghanistan might try to come up through that border."”