Since December 2001, the US military has been renting and using part of the Manas International Airport in Bishkek, the capital city of Kyrgyzstan as an important military logistical base and international transit center aiding the US troops and other international forces in Afghanistan. With the gradual increase of the military influence of US in Central Asia, the military and security cooperation of Central Asian states with US and NATO also consolidate and deepen gradually which aroused the alertness and worry of Russia. The question of the US military's continued presence at or withdrawal from the Manas Airbase has always been a hot spot in the landscape of the Central Asian security, which has gone beyond the boundary of the Kyrgyzstan-US bilateral relationship and got interlocked with multilateral regional issues such as the rivalry between Russia and US in Central Asia and the security situation of Central Asia after the expected pullout of NATO from Afghanistan in 2014 and thus become extremely complicated. After Atambayev became President of Kyrgyzstan at the end of 2011, he has hinted more than once that the lease of Manas airport to US will not be renewed after the current contract expires in 2014, however it remains to be seen how the matter will turn out eventually.