Kyrgyzstan reassures Rumsfeld on U.S. base

BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan — Leaders of Kyrgyzstan's interim government assured Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld yesterday that political upheaval in this former Soviet republic would not jeopardize American use of an air base for supporting the war in Afghanistan.

Rumsfeld, on the final stop of a four-day trip that also took him to Iraq and Afghanistan, where the future of the U.S. military presence also was raised, was to return to Washington, D.C., last night after a refueling stop in England.

Although the base at Manas airport in Kyrgyzstan is relatively small, with about 1,000 U.S. military personnel, it is an important hub in a network of air stations that give the Pentagon the logistical reach it needs to operate in landlocked Afghanistan and elsewhere in Central Asia.

Arriving just days after the Kyrgyz parliament accepted the resignation of former President Askar Akayev, who fled to Moscow in the face of an uprising in late March, Rumsfeld met with the country's interim leadership, headed by acting President Kurmanbek Bakiyev. At a news conference with Rumsfeld, Bakiyev said he assured Rumsfeld that his country would "comply with all its international agreements," including the deal for U.S. use of Manas airport.

Also yesterday, Akayev's daughter returned to Kyrgyzstan's parliament to assume the seat she won in disputed parliamentary elections earlier this year.

Bermet Akayeva unexpectedly appeared for the first time since her family fled after the revolt fueled in part by allegations of corruption against the former leader and his family.

Akayeva enjoys parliamentary immunity as a lawmaker.

The candidacy of Akayev's daughter was controversial because an opposition candidate planning to run in the same district was disqualified. Roza Otunbayeva had been serving as the country's ambassador to Britain but was disqualified because of a law that requires candidates to have lived in Kyrgyzstan for the previous five years. Otunbayeva is now serving as foreign minister.