TASHKENT (AFP) — The US military is again using Uzbekistan as a stop-off point for military operations in neighbouring Afghanistan after ending its presence there over a diplomatic row, a US official said Thursday.
Uzbekistan in 2005 closed down a US air base set up near the Afghan border following the September 11, 2001 attacks in retaliation against US criticism of the bloody repression of unrest in the city of Andijan by Uzbek forces.
But diplomatic contacts between the former Soviet republic and Washington have warmed up recently. In January, the head of US Central Command, Admiral William Fallon, visited Tashkent and met with Uzbek President Islam Karimov.
"Individual Americans attached to the NATO international staff can use the German airbridge from Termez to Afghanistan on a case-by-case basis," an official from the US embassy in Tashkent told AFP.
The report was confirmed by NATO's special envoy to the Caucasus and Central Asia, Robert Simmons, who said at a briefing in Moscow on Wednesday: "Other allies, including the United States, are using facilities in Uzbekistan."
Germany has been using a base in Termez in southern Uzbekistan since 2002.
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