Kyrgyzstan has cancelled a cooperation treaty with the US. Kyrgyz Prime Minister Temir Sariyev ordered his cabinet to renounce the Bilateral Agreement with the US, which has been in force since May 19, 1993. It will cease to be valid from August 20. The Kyrgyz Foreign Ministry was instructed to notify the US government of the cancellation of the document.
Any property used by US assistance programs will be deprived of the right to duty-free entry to the Kyrgyz Republic, and US personnel located in Kyrgyzstan will have to pay taxes, will be deprived of their near-diplomatic status, which they had been receiving under the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations of April 18th 1961.
The deputy head of the Editorial Council of Vestnik Kavkaza, the Director General of the Institute for Caspian Cooperation, Sergey Mikheyev, told Vestnik Kavkaza that he tied the cancellation of the agreement with the importing of suspicious cargo. "In this regard, Kyrgyzstan returned to the normal control of cargo destined for the US and pro-US organizations. So there is no break in relations with the United States, just American cargoes are deprived of a preferential regime when crossing the Kyrgyz border," the expert said.
Mikheyev expressed confidence that US assistance programs were initially a cover. "I think that there was no support, no serious aid from the US to Kyrgyzstan. The real help came only from Russia, another thing is that Russia could never adequately advertise itself and its assistance, while American aid has always been purely symbolic. The position of Kyrgyzstan regarding the West goes back to common sense, and the contacts with the Western countries are moving to general rules," he noted.
According to the Director General of the Institute for Caspian Cooperation, we shouldn't expect a sharply negative reaction from the United States. "It is unlikely that they will be happy, but I do not think they will undertake anything," Sergey Mikheev concluded.
Another expert, Ph.D. in History, Alisher Sabirov, in his turn, noted that the political situation in Kyrgyzstan is variable. "Perhaps it is the policy of certain political circles in Kyrgyzstan which are not focused on the US and other countries, and these countries have a certain influence on such decisions," he said.
According to Sabirov, the US will not rush to a negative reaction, expecting that Kyrgyzstan will eventually reconsider its position. "The Americans have already made a statement that they are considering the technical aspects of the document. Apparently, they will adjust their policy in relation to Kyrgyzstan in terms of assisting," the expert stressed.
