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NATO supplies in Pakistan blocked for third day
PESHAWAR: A blockade of the main land route for NATO supplies from Pakistan into Afghanistan continued Saturday as queues of trucks and tankers formed at the border crossing, officials said.Pakistan halted the convoys on Thursday after officials blamed cross-border NATO helicopter fire for the deaths of three Pakistani soldiers.
"The situation is the same. The border is blocked for NATO supplies," an official at Torkham, the main border crossing in Pakistan's Khyber district, told media by telephone.
A senior security official in the northwestern city of Peshawar also confirmed that convoys were suspended for third day but said negotiations to solve the problem continued.
"Long queues of trucks and oil tankers are waiting along Torkham and in the adjacent areas for the reopening," the official at Torkham said.
NATO said aircraft had entered Pakistani airspace Thursday in self-defence and killed "several armed individuals" after the crews believed they had been fired at from the ground.
It was the fourth such strike this week by NATO helicopters pursuing militants into Pakistani territory in actions that have been condemned by the government.
Khyber is on the main NATO supply route through Pakistan into Afghanistan, where more than 152,000 US and NATO forces are fighting an intensifying Taliban insurgency.
The Pakistani government said it was investigating Thursday's incident in the Kurram district of the northwestern tribal belt, which Washington has branded an Al-Qaeda headquarters and hub of militants fighting in Afghanistan.
Courtesy www.geo.tv