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MANAS TRANSIT CENTER Kyrgyzstan (Reuters) - The United States on Tuesday handed back its only Central Asian airbase to the government of Russia's close ally Kyrgyzstan, as President Barack Obama winds down U.S. involvement in Afghanistan and Moscow makes a comeback in its old imperial backyard. In a move aimed at pleasing its former overlord Russia, parliament in Kyrgyzstan voted a year ago to give Washington until July 11 to vacate the Manas Transit Center, which has served U.S. operations in Afghanistan since 2001. The base, at the main civilian airport in the former Soviet republic, moved more than 5.3...

LONDON — The NATO commander in Afghanistan said his troop surge could lead to a negotiated peace with the Taliban, in an interview published Monday ahead of a major conference this week on the war. US General Stanley McChrystal also told the Financial Times he hopes his allies will leave Thursday's meeting in London with a "renewed commitment" to the increasingly bloody conflict. By using the 30,000-strong surge in US troops to secure territory stretching from the Taliban's southern heartlands to Kabul, the general said he aims to weaken the insurgency so much its leaders would accept a political settlement....