BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan (Reuters) -- Kyrgyzstan assured the United States on Tuesday it could keep its air base in the former Soviet Central Asian state, a relief to Washington which is being ejected from nearby Uzbekistan.President Kurmanbek Bakiyev said at a joint news conference with visiting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that the 1,000 troops could stay as long as they were needed to fly supply missions into Afghanistan in the fight against the Taliban.The United States won that pledge -- also formalized in a joint statement -- after tough negotiations that needed a one-on-one meeting between Rice and the president to seal the commitment, U.S. officials said.In return, the United States offered to give a clearer accounting of the roughly $50 million it gives to Kyrgyzstan for the base each year, a senior State Department official involved in the talks said.But Bakiyev stopped short of giving U.S. troops the right to stay indefinitely.Kyrgyzstan needs to strike a balance in its relations with the United States and Russia, which views Washington as muscling in on its traditional sphere of influence under the guise of needing to fight in Afghanistan.At stake is sway over a region that is a narcotics crossroads, a vital launching pad against the Taliban, and home to some of the world's largest oil finds in recent decades.The senior official said the base deal could offset the military's loss in UzbekistanThere, President Islam Karimov balked at Washington's criticism of a massacre of protesters by Uzbek troops in May and ejected the U.S. military from its only other air base in the region that supplies its forces in Afghanistan.Despite signing up to a statement with Russia in July in the Kazakh capital that called on U.S. troops to set a date to leave Central Asia, Bakiyev has adopted a more moderate tone at home, emphasizing the need for Afghanistan to be stable."Maybe they (the Russians) won't be happy, but that's not something we can worry about," the senior official said.Rice, a former Soviet specialist who used some Russian in her meetings was on the first leg of a tour that also includes Afghanistan, Kazakhstan and Tajikistan.While lower-level Kyrgyz officials have previously said the United States could stay, U.S. diplomats hailed Tuesday's pledge because it came from the president, was made directly to Rice and was backed up in writing.She and Bakiyev sought to allay the concerns of Russia, which also has a base in the poor country."Kyrgyzstan is committed to good and even relations (with) all the states it has cooperated with," Bakiyev said.Rice prodded the new Kyrgyz government, in power after free elections that followed a people's revolt in March, to move towards full democracy.But in a region skeptical of U.S. motives, especially after Washington welcomed people-power revolts in Soviet states in recent years, Rice was careful not to press for swift change for fear of alienating a military ally.Copyright 2005 Reuters. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.