Tashkent\'s decision to demand the United States remove its airbase from Uzbekistan is the country\'s sovereign right, said Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov. \"The decision to demand the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Uzbekistan can be perceived in only one way - as a decision made by a sovereign country,\" Ivanov told journalists in Samarkand on Thursday. Tashkent demanded in July that the U.S. close down its airbase in Khanabad within 180 days. (Interfax)