It is very beneficial for the United States to have its military contingent in Kazakhstan on a long-term basis.
Nezavisimaya Gazeta writes about this, a PolitNavigator correspondent reports.
The publication recalls that recently at a briefing in Nur-Sultan, US representatives said that it was their experts who assessed the work and provided consultations on the collection (disposal) of unexploded ordnance in the city of Arys, Turkestan region of Kazakhstan, where the arsenal detonated in 2019.
“Warehouses containing Soviet and possibly Russian ammunition exploded there, and Russian military sappers have extensive experience in collecting and disposing of them. However, for some reason, the Ministry of Defense of Kazakhstan decided that the assessment of neutralizing the consequences of the explosions at the arsenal in Arys would be better carried out by specialists from the American rapid reaction squad,” the publication notes.
Military expert Colonel Shamil Gareev says that he would not be surprised if the American military soon appears in Arys again.
“And whether there will only be engineers, sappers, and not other specialists, for example, representatives of intelligence, radio engineering troops, air force, air defense forces - this is a big question,” says Gareev.
He points out that Arys is a city that is located literally a few tens of kilometers from the border with Uzbekistan and is connected to Tashkent by railroad, which also leads to the Baikonur Cosmodrome.
“It is beneficial for the Americans to have their own units in this region on a long-term basis. And there is a fear that the Kazakh leadership will not strongly oppose this,” the expert believes.
He recalled that it was Kazakhstan, from the beginning of the operation in the early 2000s, that assisted the Western coalition troops in the transit of US and NATO cargo during the operation in Afghanistan.
“At that time, cargo from Europe went along the Black Sea to the ports of Georgia, then to Azerbaijan, through the Kazakh Caspian port of Aktau to Uzbekistan and then to Afghanistan. Now that the armed forces of the alliance countries are withdrawing from Afghanistan, a route in the opposite direction is possible,” Gareev does not rule out the possibility.
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