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Kyrgyz farmers ask parliament to close U.S. airbase

19 September 2011 19:59 (UTC +04:00)

Baku-APA. Residents of several districts of the Chuisk region in northern Kyrgyzstan have asked the Kyrgyz parliament to shut down the U.S. Transit Center at Manas airport, complaining that crops were ruined by its work, Interfax reported Monday, APA reports quoting Xinhua.

"Since 2007, U.S. military planes in the Transit Transportation Center at the Manas airport have been dumping fuel over several populated areas of the Chuisk region, which is having a serious negative impact on the environmental situation and is inflicting irreparable damage on crops," Kharypbek Serenov, the head of the public organization Asyr, told the parliamentary committee on defense.

Serenov said an investigation has revealed that the fuel which is being dumped on the crops is burning them and the farmers are suffering serious losses.

Serenov said the polluted area is expanding every year and demanded that the parliament consider the issue of removing the Transit Center from Kyrgyzstan and paying compensation to the farmers.

The parliamentarian also said he has information that U.S. planes have also dumped fuel over Kazakhstan and Kazakh farmers have received compensation.

Ismail Isakov, the head of the committee on defense and a representative of the Social Democratic Party in the parliament, said that "the issue of fuel dumping and compensation cannot be approached in a biased way."

"There is also the CSTO air base in Kant in Kyrgyzstan, which also conducts flights in that area. We need to conduct an objective investigation," Isakov said.

Isakov criticized the local authorities and environmental organizations for not monitoring the situation and suggested asking the Academy of Sciences to conduct a detailed study of the areas of the Chuisk region over which military planes are flying.