MOSCOW, October 19 (RIA Novosti) – The United States has started the withdrawal from an airbase in Kyrgyzstan that serves as the main transit hub for NATO forces in Afghanistan, the Pentagon said in a statement on Friday.

In 2011, Kyrgyz President Almazbek Atambayev announced plans to shut the base down by 2014, when the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) is to be pulled out of Afghanistan.

He signed a bill ordering the closure of the base into law in June. It stipulates that US forces must abandon the base at Manas International Airport, near the capital Bishkek, by July 2014.