Indicating some degree of progress in the continued negotiations with Pakistan over the revival of the blocked NATO supply routes, the United States has expressed hope for the resolution of the issue soon.
The comments by a State Department spokesman on the issue came amid media reports that a senior Pentagon official would be visiting Islamabad next week to take part in bilateral negotiations underway on the issue.
“We do remain engaged with Pakistan on reopening these ground lines of communication. We want to – we think that opening them would obviously be an important demonstration of Pakistan’s commitment to the international effort to ensure a prosperous, peaceful Afghanistan. So we’re working diligently trying to make progress,” State Department Deputy Spokesman Mark Toner said.
Islamabad’s blockade of the routes six months ago has made Washington and its NATO allies to depend on a costly and much longer Northern Distribution Network that fetches supplies into landlocked Afghanistan via Russia and Central Asian countries.
Pakistan’s closure of the routes was prompted by a November 26, 2011 US warplane attacks on its military posts along the Afghan border in which Afghanistan-based forces killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.
Asked about a timeline on weeks-old negotiations on reopening the overland Pakistani routes, the spokesman said, “I mean, we certainly hope to reach a resolution very soon.”
Toner also hinted that aside from counterterrorism cooperation, Washington was discussing a range of other issues of interest to Islamabad, including the areas where Pakistan sought American cooperation for development. “We’re continuing to meet in Islamabad to talk over these issues as we are discussing a broad range of issues with Pakistan. But you’re right. It’s slow going, but we’re making progress,” he remarked.
The spokesman referred to a brief meeting between US President Barack Obama and President Asif Ali Zardari on the sidelines of a NATO summit in Chicago last week and said Washington wants Pakistan to be a “stable, prosperous democracy that’s helping its neighbors also become stable democracies”.