US State Department diplomat talks about Kyrgyz-US relations

AKIPRESS.COM - Ambassador Alice G. Wells, Acting Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of South and Central Asian Affairs, is competing her mission. She gave a virtual press briefing on May 19.
AKIpress news agency asked: "Now we see rising competition between the United States and China, how do you think this will affect Central Asia?"
Ambassador Wells: Well, our relations with Central Asia, again, stand on their own. And we expect and support that the countries of Central Asia, Kyrgyzstan, will have balanced and mutually beneficial relations with all the countries of the region. And so this is - should not be a zero-sum proposition. And America's engagement with Central Asia has been about opening Central Asia up to the world, about ensuring that Central Asia has the sovereignty and independence and territorial integrity it needs to develop and deepen its democratic institutions.
We've had a terrific historic partnership with Kyrgyzstan from the very - from the birth of Kyrgyzstan, from Kyrgyzstan's more accelerated embrace of democracy and democratic institutions. We've supported whether it's the development of your media and nongovernmental sector but also training programs across ministries. We've supported Kyrgyzstan's WTO ambitions. And so I think it's been a full-blown relationship that included, during the height of the Northern Distribution Network, the Manas Base, which helped support trying to bring stability to Afghanistan.
We think now under this bilateral relationship, but also in our C5 relationship, we need to focus on how to increase economic prosperity and trade and investment - that's critical - and how to increase the intra-regional connectivity, including to the south to Afghanistan. And so we've welcomed the high-level engagements that we've had with the Kyrgyz Government, including most recently in February by Secretary Pompeo.