The United States on Friday said it continues to work with Islamabad on resumption of NATO supplies through the South Asian country’s land routes but avoided specific comments on suggestion that an invitation to Pakistan for this month’s Chicago summit depended on reopening of the supply routes.
A State Department spokesperson, though, noted that NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen spoke very clearly on the issue earlier in the day in Brussels. The US-led NATO sees the Pakistani land routes as being crucial to transportation of supplies into landlocked Afghanistan as well as planned exit from the countryby 2014.
The routes, which allow transportation of supplies from Pakistani ports via mountainous Pakistan-Afghanistan border, have been shut for almost six months since a NATO war plane killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in a cross-border strike on the Salala security post.
The incident drew a strong reaction from Islamabad, a longtime partner in the fight against al-Qaeda in the region. “When Ambassador Grossman was in Pakistan, some ten days ago, he had substantive conversations himself with regard to the opening of the land routes.
“And then he brought with him an expert team to work with the Pakistani expert team,” spokesperson Victoria Nuland said, when asked to comment on the issue.
“That team is still in Pakistan. They are continuing to work together on this issue.
Nuland said “Secretary General Rasmussen spoke pretty clearly where NATO is on this set of issues. He did remind that the supply routes are blocked and that we are continuing our dialogue and that we are looking for a solution. So I don’t think I can improve on that.”
Responding to a question Nuland confirmed that the Secretary of State has received a letter from a group of lawmakers advocating designation of the Afghan Haqqani network as a terrorist organization and said the U.S. administration continues to review the issue.
Washington alleges Haqqani group has a sanctuary in Pakistan’s tribal areas and believes it regularly carries out attacks against U.S. troops deployed in Afghanistan.
The spokesperson added the U.S. and the UN have already designated several leaders of the Haqqani group as terrorists, which is an effective step. “We are continuing to review the question of the larger group.”
