MOSCOW (AP) - Russia appreciates U.S. help in liquidating the terrorist threat in Afghanistan but will seek to put time limits on the American military presence in Central Asia, Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said in an article published Tuesday.
Writing in the weekly magazine "Kommersant Vlast," Ivanov said Russia alone would not have been able to counter the threat of terrorism to its territory emanating from Afghanistan.
Ivanov apparently was referring to terrorist bases in Afghanistan formerly run by the deposed Taliban where rebels from breakaway Chechnya are alleged to have received military training.
"Thanks to the action of the anti-terrorist coalition, one has been able to practically eliminate the security threat to Russia and our partners in the Commonwealth of Independent States - to destroy the terrorist bases on Afghan territory," Ivanov wrote.
The five former Soviet republics in Central Asia that are members of the Commonwealth of Independent States, the loose formation of former Soviet republics set up after the communist collapse in 1991, have been especially vulnerable to Islamic militant groups, some of which used Afghanistan as a base.
Russia also has feared the spread of Islamic militants from the south but was unable to counter such a threat.
"It is clear that alone we would not have had the strength. That is why the participation of the United States and other countries in the anti-terrorist coalition in Afghanistan responds on the whole to our national interests," Ivanov wrote.
Although some in the Russian military looked askance, Russia did not oppose the stationing of U.S. troops in Central Asia, which Moscow has long considered its sphere of influence, as part of the anti-terror operation.
U.S. troops are currently deployed in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
However, Ivanov indicated that Russian tolerance was reaching its limits.
"In the dialogue with the United States, we are now and in the future going to seek maximum transparency of their (U.S.) military activities in the region and time limits on their military presence," Ivanov wrote.
Vladimir Rushailo, the secretary of Russia's presidential Security Council on a trip to Kyrgyzstan Tuesday, said that Moscow had approved the deployment of anti-terror coalition forces in Central Asia for operations in Afghanistan "on short-term basis."
The United States always has said that the deployment of American troops in Central Asia was temporary but that U.S. forces would stay in the region for as long as it takes to eliminate the terrorist threat.