Kyrgyz officials have repeatedly said that President Kurmanbek Bakiyev is considering ordering the base's closure, in the hope it will prompt Russia to extend a major loan and invest in the impoverished country's energy sector.

"Obviously, if we were not able to use the airport there would be difficulties in supplying and resupplying our forces in Afghanistan so we would regret that," said Robert Simmons, NATO's special representative for the Caucasus and Central Asia.

The base, located at Manas outside the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek, is home to about 1,200 foreign military personnel, mainly from the United States, and acts as a staging post for operations in Afghanistan, located to the south.

It was opened after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to support US-led operations in Afghanistan.

"What we do is we use facilities at Manas to transit and to transport goods and soldiers to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) force in Afghanistan," Simmons told reporters at a news conference in Bishkek.

He emphasised that "it is a resupply base, not an airbase for us to use in any military sense."

He also pointed out that Kyrgyzstan was not the only state supporting NATO operations in Afghanistan and that the alliance had "wide support" from other countries for its logistics, including from Russia.

Moscow agreed in April to allow "non-lethal" NATO supplies to transit Russian territory by train on their way to Afghanistan.

In recent months there have been a number of street demonstrations in Kyrgyzstan demanding the closure of the base, which is next to the main international airport of the ex-Soviet central Asian country.

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