Ambassador Neumann:  It is getting better but it is difficult.  The parliament is coming on well and is acting responsibly.  I think it will be interesting to people in your country that have a new parliament also, to perhaps have some interchange between your parliaments.  The security situation obviously has difficulties but there is clear progress in many of the Eastern provinces.  Even in the South where there is still heavy fighting there is progress.  The Taliban leader named Dadullah Lang gave an interview a few months ago in which he said they would take all of Helmand province, capture the capital, and do various other things.  He said there would be a big Spring offensive but now there is a bigger NATO Spring offensive.  NATO ISAF (International Security Assistance Forces) forces have taken back several districts that the Taliban held and we have killed Dadullah but there is still much work to do and history shows that it takes some time to overcome insurgencies.  That is why so many countries are continuing to cooperate in active operations in Afghanistan.  We increased our forces at the end of last year.  The British increased their forces also.  These are showing successes but work remains.  The international response is very good and very strong.  So you have not only the European countries but countries like Australia and New Zealand fighting.  Korea has contributed economic assistance.  Japan is one of the biggest donors.  In that context the support of Kyrgyzstan for Manas is of particularly important additional help.  One of the reasons for my trip, of course, was to thank the government and people of Kyrgyzstan for their support.  I think that it is very important to remember that this is support to Afghanistan much more than it is something special for America.  Manas is used only for Afghan support operations.  It has no other purpose.  I would like to confirm that this is the fact and also to remind that Manas supports not only American forces moving to Afghanistan but other countries in the Coalition.  Lithuania has forces in Afghanistan and just recently they sent the replacement forces where they did the transfer out of the old force and transfer in of the new.  I visited the Lithuanian force and it also has forces there from Croatia and from Iceland.  In other words, many small states are helping in Afghanistan.  It is not just a war of America.  I think I’ve probably said more than what you wanted for one answer.

Denisenkov:  Thank you this is exactly what I wanted to hear in response to my question and this allows me to proceed to our next questions.

Ambassador Neumann:  Fine.

Denisenkov:  Are there any other countries that hold similar bases similar to the one which we host at Manas airport?

Ambassador Neumann:  Pakistan hosts a great deal.  Much more actually but this one is important.  Then of course other countries have other help.  I think the Germans still fly their forces through staging in Uzbekistan.  There are more than 3,000 German military in the Northern part of Afghanistan.  I think those are the two big ones which are not Western powers.  Of course there are the NATO bases in Europe in many countries.

Denisenkov:  The reason I ask about similar bases in other countries is because I am wondering about the attitude of people in these countries towards the bases specifically towards the base in Pakistan.  The reason why I asked, as you probably know, currently there is a strong negative attitude from the public and from some politicians towards the airbase in Manas and there are strong voices about denouncing the agreement of the base and withdrawal of the base from the country.

Ambassador Neumann:  I am aware of those arguments.  I hope that people as they make these arguments will also look at the strategic issue of instability in the region and the importance of succeeding in Afghanistan.  If we do not succeed in Afghanistan then you would have a return of the Taliban and you would have again a base for projecting radical Islam and radical attacks northward just as you had before so success in Afghanistan, I believe, is in the interest of Kyrgyzstan.   I’d hope people would look at this interest as well.  I believe also that your officials have worked very hard to make sure we recognize the importance of the issues that have bothered the Kyrgyz and that your officials have worked very hard with us to set up new procedures so that there will not be incidents in the future of the kind that troubled people in the past.

Denisenkov:   Opponents of the base make one argument.  They say that if there is a U.S. strike on Iran then this would cause retaliation action from Iran on countries from the territories of which strikes were made or which supported these strikes on Iran.  How much water does this argument hold?

Ambassador Neumann:  Well I don’t think it holds any water in the case of Kyrgyzstan for two reasons.  The first one is that I don’t believe there is going to be any attack on Iran.  I think this is being much exaggerated in the press.  The second reason is that we have agreed this base is only for the support of Afghan operations.  It is not to be used for any other purpose.  This is part of the signed agreement which has been ratified by your parliament as well as by us.  So, there would be no support from this base and frankly we do not need this base.  We can reach everywhere in Iran from carrier bases and refueling in the Gulf.  I don’t want to get into details but we’ve reached everywhere in Afghanistan refueling from other places.  In short, we don’t need it for that purpose, we don’t have that purpose and we have agreed and promised you that we will not use it for that purpose.

Denisenkov:   Mr. Ambassador you have probably heard many times about Kyrgyzstan’s readiness to participate in the rebuilding of Afghanistan but so far these were just intentions which lead nowhere.  What do you think about possible participation of Kyrgyzstan in programs of reconstruction of Afghanistan and considering the still unstable situation in Afghanistan how effective and efficient is foreign assistance?

Ambassador Neumann:  Let me take it (question) in reverse.  I think foreign assistance is becoming more and more effective but part of the issue is the training of enough Afghans to adequately administer their own government and to be the counterparts with the foreigners for good programs.   That is improving but it is very difficult.  Afghanistan needs everything and so you can either say that there are many successes because you measure what has been done or you can say there are many failures because you measure everything that still has to be done.  For instance, in just our program, and remember there are many countries working in Afghanistan, but in just our program, we have built 500 schools, over 400 (health) clinics, more than 2,000 kilometers of roads, cleaned out more than 4,000 kilometers of water cannels that were ruined, we’ve trained over 60,000 teachers.  But these same things show you how much still needs to be done.  The 60,000 teachers are high school graduates who are teaching at the primary levels but it takes much longer to train teachers to teach at the high school levels.  So there are many places in Afghanistan where people can work if they want to.  There is fighting in some parts of the country but there is not fighting everywhere.  I’m not quite clear what kind of aid Kyrgyzstan would like to give.  First of all, if Kyrgyzstan is interested in doing some more humanitarian work then the best thing would be to send a small mission to talk to people in Kabul and decide on specifics.  Other people have talked to me about whether Kyrgyz companies could be working more in development projects which is not aid but which is also of course assistance.  We don’t assign aid to countries.  We put projects out for open competition.  But I think that we could do more to help Kyrgyz companies learn how to compete for these contracts.  So one thing I will ask our people to look at as a result of this visit is that we might do a short training seminar, as we have done in other countries, to help inform businessmen how to find the contracts and how to prepare the documents and how to bid on them.  I think that’s the best way we can help while keeping a system that is open and transparent and therefore guards against corruption.

Denisenkov:  Recently we hosted a media forum here and speaking at this media forum the General Secretary of the Collective Security Treaty (CST) said that regretfully the anti-terror coalition is not interested in cooperating with the collective security treaty in conducting activities in Afghanistan even though the CST demonstrated its willingness to cooperate and to join efforts in Afghanistan.  However, so far the anti-terror coalition and specifically the NATO countries were reluctant to cooperate in the activities in Afghanistan.

Ambassador Neumann:  I don’t really know what they offered.  There may be something but I am not aware of a specific offer so I don’t know what the answer is because I’ve never heard of such an offer.  It may be something old but I don’t know about it.

Denisenkov:  Where is Osama Bin Laden?  What is he doing?  Does he exist or is he a myth?

Ambassador Neumann:  No he still exists but he does not do much active command and he hides most of the time.  I hope one day we find him but we have not found him yet. 

Thank you.