NATO supply routes reopened

NATO supply routes reopened

The NATO supply routes to Afghanistan have been reopened after an apology came from Washington about the losses in lives that the military of Pakistan suffered last year due to NATO air strikes on two of its border posts.

The moss of lives suffered by the Pakistani military was the death of 24 Pakistani soldiers that were situated on two of the border posts near Afghanistan. The air strikes had gone on for a period of two hours despite the fact that the NATO forces were contacted
by the Pakistani military to stop the air strikes. However, that had not been the case and the strikes had continued. The Pakistani military had termed the attack as unprovoked aggression and demanded that an official apology should come from Washington. However,
it took a period of about seven months for Washington to make an apology.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently gave a call to the Foreign Minister of Pakistan Hina Rabbani Khar and expressed the sentiments of Washington in the following words, “We are sorry for the losses suffered by the Pakistani military. We are committed
to working closely with Pakistan and Afghanistan to prevent this from ever happening again.”

Soon after the telephone call was received from the US Secretary of State, Pakistan made the announcement that the routes for truck convoys hauling fuel, food and other nonlethal supplies would be reopened to the US troops situated in Afghanistan. The supply
routes range from the port of Karachi and go on to Afghanistan.

The closed supply routes were causing an additional cost per month to the American forces as they had to incur an extra $100 million on a monthly basis. This was because the supplies had been reaching the troops either through air or through the rail route
or by the road from Russia. Not only that, other countries that are situated to the north of Afghanistan were also being used but the increased cost was due to an increased length of the route.

The supply route is responsible for taking as much as 40% of non lethal supplies to the US troops.   

Short URL: https://www.newspakistan.pk/?p=28096

Posted by Rabiya Maqbool on Jul 4 2012. Filed under Pakistan, Politics. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry