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US hopes for breakthrough in Pakistan Nato supply route talks
By Reuters
ISLAMABAD: The United States hopes Pakistan will soon agree to re-open supply routes for Nato troops in Afghanistan, a US official said on Wednesday, after a Senate panel threatened to cut aid to Islamabad over the standoff.Pakistan closed the supply routes, seen as vital to the planned withdrawal of most foreign troops from Afghanistan before the end of 2014, in protest against last November's killing of 24 Pakistani soldiers in a Nato air attack along the Afghan border.
"Talks are ongoing and we hope to reach a resolution soon," the US official told Reuters.
Nato has been seeking to compensate for the lack of access in Pakistan with shipments of war supplies via Afghanistan's other neighbours, but those routes are more expensive.
A Western official said fees for use of the routes which Pakistan is demanding are under discussion in talks currently focused on technical issues.
US President Barack Obama said on Monday that he felt the United States and Pakistan were making "diligent progress" on a deal.
Obama, who spoke briefly with Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari on the sidelines of the Nato summit in Chicago, said he told Zardari that Pakistan needed to be part of the solution in Afghanistan.
"THESE ARE COMPLEX ISSUES"
A US Senate panel voted cuts in aid to Pakistan on Tuesday and threatened to withhold even more cash if Islamabad did not reopen the routes, reflecting American frustration over the standoff.
The Senate panel voted to cut aid to Pakistan by 58 percent in fiscal 2013 from the request by the Obama administration, said the panel's chairman, Senator Patrick Leahy, who like Obama is a Democrat.
The panel's spending blueprint must still be approved by the full Senate and the House of Representatives before it can become law.
Pakistani officials have denied press reports that Islamabad has been holding up progress in the talks by demanding unreasonably high supply route fees.
"These are complex issues under discussion with a range of topics," one of the officials told Reuters. "I cannot say if there will be a deal tomorrow, next week or the week after. It will be resolved when it is resolved." (Reuters)
Courtesy www.geo.tv