NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen urged Pakistan on Monday to keep open supply lines to NATO forces in Afghanistan despite anger over a US drone strike that killed the Pakistani Taliban leader.
Pakistan said on Sunday it would review its relationship with the United States after Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud was killed two days earlier in North Waziristan, near the Afghan border. “I feel confident that the Pakistani authorities will maintain open supply routes and transit routes because it is in Pakistan’s own interest to contribute positively to stability and security in the region,” Rasmussen told a news conference. The Pakistani government denounced Mehsud’s killing as a US attempt to derail peace talks with the Pakistani Taliban, who have killed thousands in their campaign to impose their rule.
Some Pakistani politicians have demanded that transit routes through Pakistan, used to supply NATO-led forces in Afghanistan, be cut in response. Pakistan is the main route to supply US troops in landlocked Afghanistan with everything from food and drinking water to fuel. Any closure could be a serious disruption as US and other Western forces prepare to withdraw most of their troops from Afghanistan by the end of next year. Pakistani cooperation is also seen as vital in trying to bring peace to Afghanistan, in particular in nudging the Afghan Taliban, allied to, but separate from, the Pakistani Taliban, into talks with the Kabul government.
Pakistan and the United States agreed in July 2012 to reopen land routes to Afghanistan, ending a seven-month crisis that damaged ties between the two countries. Without the Pakistani route, NATO forces are forced to use more expensive methods, such as airlifts, to bring supplies in. Rasmussen declined to comment on the drone strike that killed Mehsud but appeared to lend support to US actions, saying “terrorism constitutes a threat to the whole region”. He said he believed the Pakistani authorities, including the government and the military, realised it was in Islamabad’s interest to ensure peace and stability in Afghanistan. “The security of Afghanistan and Pakistan is inter-linked. There can’t be security in the one country without security in the other,” he said.
Let's use the more expensive route and just use the Aid money to cover the extra costs that we normally hand out that keeps the Pakistan Govt going and the aid programs. Make it simple – no cooperation, no land route access – no foreign aid! Its obvious that the leaders there dont' care about terrorist leaders running amuck in their own country so hit them where they will take notice – foreign aid! When will we/the US govt and people learn to stop funding a govt and a people who continually denounce us even though they still lack the capacity to get themselves in to the 20th century.
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Those Dems will never get it …
Some of them get good campaign contributions from ISI-lings …
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you guys should leave the Muslim countries and go back to your own Country so called super power which was lost in Vietnam and still losing in Afghanistan. We dont want your aid but please answer me one question How come you are using our infrastructure such as roads and air bases for free…..??? please answer it as we all wanna know.
Rasmussen is a serial murderer who would kill anybody anytime anywhere without question for political expedience or fun or whatever. A sick demented inhuman being: Rasmussen of NAZI NATO
FOREIGN aid in most cases is just a contract for the receiver client country to use the money to buy useless weird American military crap. It's a way to sell it. thought you knew that………
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