By Gopal Ratnam and Khurrum Anis - 2012-07-03T19:34:39Z
Pakistan is reopening NATO supply lines to Afghanistan after a seven-month dispute, saying that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton satisfied its demand to apologize for a clash that killed 24 Pakistani border troops.
Clinton said in a statement announcing the decision that she offered “deepest regrets” over the accidental killing of troops in the November incident during a conversation yesterday with Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar.
The military supply routes have been shut as Pakistani officials demanded a U.S. apology for the killings and the two nations negotiated. The closing forced the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to send material and equipment from the north, through Central Asia, at an added cost that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has estimated at about $100 million a month.
“Foreign Minister Khar and I acknowledged the mistakes that resulted in the loss of Pakistani military lives,” Clinton said yesterday. “We are sorry for the losses suffered by the Pakistani military. We are committed to working closely with Pakistan and Afghanistan to prevent this from ever happening again.”
While Clinton didn’t use the word “apologize,” Qamar Zaman Kaira, Pakistan’s information minister said in Islamabad that the routes are being reopened after the U.S. was forced “to apologize to the Pakistani people and its nation. If we go into the nitty-gritty of her words, then people will take it one way or another,” he said.
A Pentagon investigation found in December that U.S. forces raiding an Afghan village near the border took heavy machine-gun fire from inside Pakistan and thought it came from insurgents because the U.S. ground commander had been told there were no Pakistani troops in the area. Return fire from U.S. helicopters killed the 24 Pakistani troops.
[h=2]‘We Are Sorry’[/h]Asked yesterday if the U.S. agreed to pay more than previously for use of the Pakistan supply routes, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said, “We are paying the exact same amount as we were paying before.”
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, said in an interview in June, that Pakistan had been demanding the U.S. pay as much as $5,000 per container of NATO supplies shipped over its routes, up from about $250 each before the routes were reopened.
The border killings capped a year of deteriorating relations between the U.S. and Pakistan, hobbling efforts by President Barack Obama’s administration to improve regional security as it withdraws from Afghanistan.
[h=2]‘Damage Control’[/h]“Pakistan does not want to isolate itself,” Mutaher Ahmed, a professor of international relations at the University of Karachi, said in a telephone interview yesterday. “Damage control came late, but now this will help Pakistan repair ties with other countries, especially the United States.”
For the Pakistan government of newly installed Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, which faces parliamentary elections by early next year, agreeing to allow the NATO trucks to once more roll across the frontier carries political risks. A June 27 survey of attitudes by the Pew Research Center found that 74 percent of Pakistanis considered the U.S. to be an enemy, up from 69 percent in 2011.
In addition to the demand for an apology after the November killings, Pakistan ordered U.S. personnel to leave an airbase used by drone aircraft targeting Islamic militants, and called for an end to missile strikes by the pilotless planes used to attack suspected Taliban and other extremists.
[h=2]Drone Use[/h]Clinton didn’t discuss in her statement the use of drones, which the Obama administration has called an invaluable tool in combating terrorists, and Kaira said only that Pakistan will seek to persuade the U.S. to end drone attacks as counter- productive.
Panetta said in a statement yesterday that he welcomed Pakistan’s decision to reopen the routes.
“As I have made clear, we remain committed to improving our partnership with Pakistan and to working closely together as our two nations confront common security challenges in the region,” Panetta said.
U.S.-led coalition troops in Afghanistan are aiming to weaken the Taliban insurgent movement before handing over security responsibilities to Afghan forces ahead of a withdrawal from the country in 2014. In the past three months, the Taliban have attacked government office buildings, including the parliament, the U.S., German and British embassies and the offices of two provincial governors.
U.S. and Afghan officials have blamed a number of the strikes on the Haqqani network, a militant group based in Pakistan and affiliated with the Taliban.
To contact the reporters on this story: Gopal Ratnam in Washington at [email protected]; Khurrum Anis in Karachi at [email protected]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Walcott at [email protected]
Pakistan is reopening NATO supply lines to Afghanistan after a seven-month dispute, saying that U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton satisfied its demand to apologize for a clash that killed 24 Pakistani border troops.
Clinton said in a statement announcing the decision that she offered “deepest regrets” over the accidental killing of troops in the November incident during a conversation yesterday with Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar.
The military supply routes have been shut as Pakistani officials demanded a U.S. apology for the killings and the two nations negotiated. The closing forced the U.S. and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization to send material and equipment from the north, through Central Asia, at an added cost that Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has estimated at about $100 million a month.
“Foreign Minister Khar and I acknowledged the mistakes that resulted in the loss of Pakistani military lives,” Clinton said yesterday. “We are sorry for the losses suffered by the Pakistani military. We are committed to working closely with Pakistan and Afghanistan to prevent this from ever happening again.”
While Clinton didn’t use the word “apologize,” Qamar Zaman Kaira, Pakistan’s information minister said in Islamabad that the routes are being reopened after the U.S. was forced “to apologize to the Pakistani people and its nation. If we go into the nitty-gritty of her words, then people will take it one way or another,” he said.
A Pentagon investigation found in December that U.S. forces raiding an Afghan village near the border took heavy machine-gun fire from inside Pakistan and thought it came from insurgents because the U.S. ground commander had been told there were no Pakistani troops in the area. Return fire from U.S. helicopters killed the 24 Pakistani troops.
[h=2]‘We Are Sorry’[/h]Asked yesterday if the U.S. agreed to pay more than previously for use of the Pakistan supply routes, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said, “We are paying the exact same amount as we were paying before.”
Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat, said in an interview in June, that Pakistan had been demanding the U.S. pay as much as $5,000 per container of NATO supplies shipped over its routes, up from about $250 each before the routes were reopened.
The border killings capped a year of deteriorating relations between the U.S. and Pakistan, hobbling efforts by President Barack Obama’s administration to improve regional security as it withdraws from Afghanistan.
[h=2]‘Damage Control’[/h]“Pakistan does not want to isolate itself,” Mutaher Ahmed, a professor of international relations at the University of Karachi, said in a telephone interview yesterday. “Damage control came late, but now this will help Pakistan repair ties with other countries, especially the United States.”
For the Pakistan government of newly installed Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf, which faces parliamentary elections by early next year, agreeing to allow the NATO trucks to once more roll across the frontier carries political risks. A June 27 survey of attitudes by the Pew Research Center found that 74 percent of Pakistanis considered the U.S. to be an enemy, up from 69 percent in 2011.
In addition to the demand for an apology after the November killings, Pakistan ordered U.S. personnel to leave an airbase used by drone aircraft targeting Islamic militants, and called for an end to missile strikes by the pilotless planes used to attack suspected Taliban and other extremists.
[h=2]Drone Use[/h]Clinton didn’t discuss in her statement the use of drones, which the Obama administration has called an invaluable tool in combating terrorists, and Kaira said only that Pakistan will seek to persuade the U.S. to end drone attacks as counter- productive.
Panetta said in a statement yesterday that he welcomed Pakistan’s decision to reopen the routes.
“As I have made clear, we remain committed to improving our partnership with Pakistan and to working closely together as our two nations confront common security challenges in the region,” Panetta said.
U.S.-led coalition troops in Afghanistan are aiming to weaken the Taliban insurgent movement before handing over security responsibilities to Afghan forces ahead of a withdrawal from the country in 2014. In the past three months, the Taliban have attacked government office buildings, including the parliament, the U.S., German and British embassies and the offices of two provincial governors.
U.S. and Afghan officials have blamed a number of the strikes on the Haqqani network, a militant group based in Pakistan and affiliated with the Taliban.
To contact the reporters on this story: Gopal Ratnam in Washington at [email protected]; Khurrum Anis in Karachi at [email protected]
To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Walcott at [email protected]