NATO trucks cross into Afghanistan from Pakistan

PanARMENIAN.Net - A pair of trucks carrying NATO supplies crossed into Afghanistan on Thursday, July 5, Pakistani customs officials said, the first time in more than seven months that Pakistan has allowed Western nations to use its roads to supply troops in Afghanistan.

According to Reuters, customs officials said the container trucks had passed through the Chaman border crossing into southern Afghanistan, a milestone following a deal this week with the United States ending the impasse triggered by the killing of 24 Pakistani soldiers by U.S. aircraft last November.

The resumption of NATO transit into Afghanistan came two days after U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, yielding to Pakistani demands, told Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar the United States was sorry for the deaths last November.

In response to the killing of the soldiers in a border post, a furious Islamabad shut the supply routes.

For months, the Obama administration refused Pakistani demands to offer an apology for what NATO said was a regrettable accident.

The closure forced NATO countries to bring in supplies into landlocked Afghanistan through an alternate route to the north, a cumbersome process that cost 2-1/2 times as much as shipping them to and then across Pakistan.