MOSCOW. July 12 (Interfax) - The establishment of new United States military facilities in Central Asia is unlikely to improve the region's security, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said.
"I don't think that the appearance of new American military facilities in Central Asia would meet the interests of security in that region," Lavrov said at a press conference on Monday.
A number of countries of the region, including Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan, are members of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO), and anything that concerns the presence of foreign troops in any member state must be agreed upon within the organization's framework, he said.
"It's telling to note that none of these countries have submitted any proposals to the CSTO on holding relevant consultations," he said.
As Washington has declared, it needs to keep a military capability in Central Asia to be able to strike Afghanistan, if need be, Lavrov said. "I don't think it's in anyone's best interests to turn themselves into a hostage of such a policy and such plans of the United States and draw retaliatory fire," he said.
"Certainly, the main question is for the Americans. If they've been unable to do anything staying inside the country for 20 years and keeping at some stage 100,000 NATO troops there, what results are they going to attain by keeping a significantly smaller presence outside of Afghanistan? I think the answer is clear enough here: it's likely the desire to secure its military presence in the region and thus influence the situation here," Lavrov said.