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Ecuador wants military base in Miami
By Phil Stewart
NAPLES (Reuters) - Ecuador's leftist President Rafael Correa
said Washington must let him open a military base in Miami if
the United States wants to keep using an air base on Ecuador's
Pacific coast.
Correa has refused to renew Washington's lease on the Manta air
base, set to expire in 2009. U.S. officials say it is vital for
counter-narcotics surveillance operations on Pacific
drug-running routes.
"We'll renew the base on one condition: that they let us put a
base in Miami -- an Ecuadorean base," Correa said in an
interview during a trip to Italy.
"If there's no problem having foreign soldiers on a country's
soil, surely they'll let us have an Ecuadorean base in the
United States."
The U.S. embassy to Ecuador says on its Web site that
anti-narcotics flights from Manta gathered information behind
more than 60 percent of illegal drug seizures on the high seas
of the Eastern Pacific last year.
It offers a fact-sheet on the base at: http://ecuador.usembassy.gov/topics_of_interest/manta-fol.html
Correa, a popular leftist economist, had promised to cut off his
arm before extending the lease that ends in 2009 and has called
U.S. President George W. Bush a "dimwit".
But Correa, an ally of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, told
Reuters he believed relations with the United States were
"excellent" despite the base closing.
He rejected the idea that the episode reflected on U.S. ties at
all.
"This is the only North American military base in South
America," he said.
"So, then the other South American countries don't have good
relations with the United States because they don't have
military bases? That doesn't make any sense."
© Reuters2007All rights reserved.
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