US suspected China pressing Kyrgyzstan: leaked files

Fav Tag: Wikileaks WASHINGTON: The United States confronted China on information it tried to pressure Kyrgyzstan to pull the rug from a US base, possibly due to a dispute over Guantanamo detainees, a leaked document said Sunday.

In a confidential cable last year, released by WikiLeaks, a US diplomat quoted Kyrgyz officials saying that China had offered three billion dollars to close Manas air base, a key US conduit for the war in Afghanistan.

US Ambassador Tatiana Gfoeller said she asked her Chinese counterpart, Zhang Yannian, about the allegations and that he became so flustered he briefly lost his ability to converse in Russian.

Zhang "ridiculed the notion of such a deal, he did not deny it outright," she wrote.

"'It would take three dollars from every Chinese person' to pay for it," she quoted him as saying. "'If our people found out, there'd be a revolution.'"

Zhang said that China had only commercial interests in Kyrgyzstan but "complained bitterly" about inmates from China's Uighur minority being held at the US military prison at Guantanamo Bay.

The United States cleared 22 Uighur detainees of wrongdoing but refused to hand them over to China, fearing they would face persecution.

Other cables depicted US officials searching the world asking countries to take former Guantanamo inmates, with Slovenia's leadership told that a meeting with President Barack Obama was linked to its decision on taking a prisoner.

Kyrgyzstan's former president Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who was ousted in a coup in April, vowed to close the base last year before allowing it to stay open after receiving a significant increase in rent from Washington.

Gfoeller said the Chinese ambassador agreed that a two-billion-dollar package offered to Kyrgyzstan by Russia was tied to closing down Manas, saying that the Russian ambassador was recently in "an expansive mood."