Pakistan announced Tuesday that it has temporarily allowed NATO to
ship perishable food to its troops in Afghanistan, a sign of thawing
tensions following American airstrikes last year that accidentally
killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
Pakistan closed its Afghan border to
NATO supplies in response to the deadly Nov. 26 attack on two of its
border posts. The closure has been a headache for coalition forces, who
have had to spend much more money to get goods to Afghanistan using
alternative routes.
Pakistani Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar said
the government would only allow NATO to ship perishable items for a
limited time and has asked the coalition not to order any more. He did
not indicate when the approval was given.
The U.S. and Pakistan
still disagree over who should be blamed for the November attack, but
there have been growing signs that relations are improving.
There
was a temporary hiccup in that process Tuesday when Pakistani police
briefly detained a U.S. Embassy employee after bullets were found in his
luggage at an airport in the country's northwest. But the man was
handed over to American officials after a couple hours.
The move to allow food items to enter Afghanistan could be a precursor to opening the border altogether.
Pakistan's
parliament is expected to vote on a revised framework for relations
with the U.S. this week that could pave the way for the government to
reopen the supply line.
Also, senior Pakistani officials have said
in recent days that the government should fully reopen its border to
NATO supplies as long as it can negotiate better fees from the
coalition.
Pakistan security forces met with their NATO and Afghan
counterparts Tuesday to discuss improving security for the upcoming
coalition convoys, said spokesman for the paramilitary Frontier Corps
Saeed Ahmed. They met in the city of Chaman in southwestern Baluchistan
province, one of Pakistan's two Afghan border crossings.
For most
of the 10-year war in Afghanistan, 90 percent of supplies shipped to
coalition forces came through Pakistan, via the port of Karachi. But
over the past three years, NATO has increased its road and rail
shipments through an alternate route that runs through Russia and
Central Asia. The northern route was longer and more expensive, but
provided a hedge against the riskier Pakistan route.
Before the
accidental American airstrikes on Nov. 26, about 30 percent of
non-lethal supplies for U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan
traveled through Pakistan.
The U.S. has since increased the amount
of supplies running through the northern route, but this has cost it a
lot more money. Pentagon figures provided to the AP in January showed
that the alternative transport was costing about $104 million per month,
$87 million more per month than when the cargo moved through Pakistan.
The
U.S. Embassy employee detained at an airport in the city of Peshawar
had 13 bullets in his luggage, said police officer Dost Mohammad Khan.
It was unclear why the bullets were there. The man was scheduled to fly
to Islamabad.
A U.S. official said the man was an embassy employee
and had diplomatic immunity. He said the U.S. Embassy was in contact
with the Pakistani authorities "about the details of the case."
The U.S. official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized by Washington to be named in the media.
There is a large U.S. consulate in Peshawar, which is close to the Afghan border.
The
presence of American diplomats inside Pakistan emerged as a sensitive
issue after a CIA contractor killed two Pakistani men in the eastern
city of Lahore a year ago. U.S. officials insisted the shooter had
diplomatic immunity, but Pakistan held him in jail for around two
months, causing severe strain in U.S-Pakistan ties.
The unilateral
American-raid that killed Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani army town in
May last year also led to a fresh wave of suspicion against Western
diplomats by the Pakistani security establishment, which was apparently
stung by the realization that the CIA agents were operating in the
country without its knowledge. AP
