NATO inks agreement with Central Asian countries

In order to wind down its operation in Afghanistan, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) struck an agreement with Central Asian States to remove equipment through their territories.

NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen while talking to the media observed, “We reached agreement on reverse transit from Afghanistan with three Central Asian partners: Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. These agreements will give us a range of new options and the robust and flexible transport network we need”.

Under thee agreement, the allied forces will be able to bypass Islamabad that closed land routes for NATO after its 24 soldiers were killed in an air strike last year.

According to the media reports, the US and Franc are due to withdraw 23000 and 4000 troops, respectively from Afghanistan by the end of this year. Washington has continuously been compelling Pakistan to resume supply line for allied forces.

He observed, “I still hope that a solution can be found in the very near future. These agreements will give us a range of new options and the robust and flexible transport network we need. The new deals would make “the use of the Russian transit arrangements even more effective”.

According to him, the Afghan security forces will have more than 350,000 members in the next few months while the international withdrawal is scheduled to be completed by the end of 2014.

NATO plans to hand over lead responsibility for the war against the Taliban to the Afghan army and police by the middle of next year, and withdraw its troops by the end of 2014.

The Secretary-General informed that Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan had agreed to allow the reverse transport of alliance equipment including weapons and heavy machinery.

The agreement will help it to ship back to Europe tens of thousands of vehicles, containers and other items through the overland route when the evacuation picks up pace later this year, since NATO already has an agreement with Russia.

The latest development on Monday appears to indicate that Washington and the allies are now preparing for the possibility that the supply line through Pakistan may not be resumed at all.

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Posted by Faisal Farooq on Jun 5 2012. Filed under National, Pakistan, World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.