“If we don’t develop democracy further in Central Asia or succeed in building a parliamentary democracy in Kyrgyzstan, then a new Afghanistan will arise in Central Asia,” President Almazbek Atambayev told a joint news conference in Berlin with German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Atambayev confirmed US servicemen will leave the Manas air base in Kyrgyzstan in 2014. He said that he had spoken to the representatives of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) that depending on the situation in Afghanistan the airport in Manas would operate until 2014.

“We know what the strategic importance of this region is, you only have to look at the neighbouring countries,” Merkel said at the news conference with Atambayev. Merkel added that Europe must be “fair” in its relations with all of Central Asia and not focus on “countries that have raw materials or are just strategically important as withdrawal routes from Afghanistan.”

Following this visit, a special governmental group from Germany will visit Kyrgyzstan to study directions for joint projects implementation.

Signed documents

During the visit, the following documents were signed in particular:

• joint statement of intentions of the Governments of Kyrgyzstan and Germany about cooperation in the sphere of culture and education policy;
• agreement on replacement of debt obligations between the German Development Bank and the Finance Ministry of Kyrgyzstan in the amount of €8,500,000 as part of conversion of the debt obligations III – Utilities Infrastructure and Poverty Reduction;
• joint statement between the Ministry of Health and the German Federal Ministry of Health on cooperation under health care sector action plan;
• communiqué of the 8^th session of the Kyrgyz-German intergovernmental commission for Germans in Kyrgyzstan, which took place on November 14 in Berlin.

The two countries also exchanged the notes regarding the following documents:

• agreement between the governments of Kyrgyzstan and Germany on financial cooperation for 2011-2012 and agreement between the government of Kyrgyzstan and Germany on technical cooperation for 2011-2012 signed on November 9 in Bishkek;
• agreement between the governments of Kyrgyzstan and Germany on the second stage of the Water Initiative for Central Asia concluded through exchange of the notes.