The US has to complete its vacation process of Shamsi Airbase before December 11 and has to submit report to the Defence Ministry in this connection, sources said Friday.
While, majority of the assets were shifted from the airbase to Afghanistan and other locations, the sources added, without specifying as what was actually shifted to other locations.
However, according to some reports, the US has shifted five drone aircrafts to Afghanistan, and United Arab Emirates took control of the airbase. The UAE built Shamsi Airbase in Balochistan for landing of small aircrafts and then the US had extended the runway for heavy aircrafts.
After NATO attacks against two posts in Mohmand Agency along Afghan border at the dawn of November 26, when 24 Pakistani soldiers were martyred and over a dozen others injured, Pak-US and Pak-NATO relations became tense.
Pakistan called a meeting of the Defence Cabinet Committee (DCC) that decided to block NATO supply to Afghanistan via Pakistan besides ordering US to vacate Shamsi Airbase, the operative station of US drone in the region.
The committee also decided to boycott the long-awaiting international conference on future of Afghanistan that was held in German city of Bonn in the first week of the current month. The DCC decisions were endorsed by the Parliamentary committee on National Security that also decided to call in joint session of the parliament over the issue.
After the NATO attack Pakistan and US were propagating their own accounts of the incident and the former also called in its diplomats from various countries for consultation over the situation emerged after raids against Pakistani posts. Sources said, “In fact meeting of the diplomats was held for reviewing Pakistan’s policy in this connection”.
Pakistani authorities had fixed December 11 as the deadline for vacating the airbase.